Tag Archives: England

Keeper’s House

It’s been a busy week at the Keeper’s House.   On Tuesday morning, the Duke of Edinburgh came to see it as Patron of the Royal Academy’s friends.   He was astonishingly spry, joking with many of the volunteers who have been friends since nearly the beginning of the scheme in 1977.  Michael Sandle reminded him that they had met twenty five years ago in Malta and Humphrey Ocean told a story of how his grandfather had shared a bed with Jeremy Hutchison on a boat round the Cape of Good Horn.  The Duke asked to see the kitchen to the slight bemusement of the cooks preparing lunch.   All in all, a good event.   Then, last night we had a little ceremony to celebrate all the work done by Edwina Sassoon to make the garden possible.   Tom Stuart – Smith came and we all toasted Edwina in prosecco.

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From left: Christopher Le Brun PRA, Charles Saumarez Smith, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, greeting Friends of the RA in Keeper’s House. © Red Photographic

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From left: Charles Saumarez Smith, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, CBE, PPRA in the Academicians’ Room © Red Photographic

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John Maine, Sanctuary

I’ve spent Saturday afternoon on the train to Salisbury to see an exhibition by John Maine RA of his sculpture in the environs of Salisbury Cathedral.   It was a spectacularly beautiful afternoon and the work looked wonderful in the crisp, clear, early spring light.   None of the work is site specific, but all of it is enhanced by the relationship to the surroundings,  including a group of stone works based on the cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey, which was previously exhibited at the Royal Academy.   Best of all were five beautifully polished stone polyhedra lining the cloister, making one look not just at the work, but at the stonework of the cloister.   But I also enjoyed the flat decorated work like tombslabs within the cathedral itself.

121 Salcath John Maine

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Catherine Goodman (1)

I’ve just been for my first sitting with Catherine Goodman,  the Artistic Director of the Prince’s Drawing School.   She’s been saying for as long as I can remember that she wanted to paint my portrait and made it clear that it had to be now if it is to be included in her forthcoming exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.  It’s surprisingly therapeutic sitting in an artists’ studio on a Saturday morning, listening to a rather tinny recording of the St. Matthew Passion on her iPod and looking at her collection of drawings pinned up on the wall opposite:  a beautiful drawing of what I thought was a child, but turned out to be a French man in his thirties and a pen drawing of a legionary,  who, from a distance, looked like Patrick Kinmonth.

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Ilse Crawford

One of the most enjoyable things I have done this week is to attend a dinner to celebrate Ilse Crawford’s MBE. She did it in style, as one might expect, hiring the whole of Cecconi’s and inviting at least half of the beau monde.   I found myself sandwiched between Anya Hindmarch, the loveliest of my Trustees, and Edwin Heathcote, the FT’s architectural correspondent.  We talked about my current preoccupation which is how to get Westminster City Council to upgrade the streetscape round Cecconi’s when Native Land does the work it is required to do on Cork Street.   I can’t think of any neighbourhood which more obviously deserves some careful and well considered upgrading, particularly in advance of the opening of the Crossrail station in Hanover Square.   So, the question is: how do we get the authorities to do this?  Edwin couldn’t tell me.

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My first blog post

Welcome to my first blog!

I’ve decided to launch into the blogosphere to celebrate the re-launch of the Royal Academy’s website in March and, also, to mark the launch of my own website (www.charlessaumarezsmith.com) which has been set up in order to ensure that I have more of a presence in the increasingly competitive digital world.

Continue reading →

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