Stanley Kennedy North: Medieval homages, c1920s
Stanley North, or Stanley Kennedy North (and sometimes, as below in the carol work, Kennedy North) as he became on his marriage to Helen Kennedy (his second wife), was a strikingly modern illustrator but almost as much a passionate medievalist - as we see in various images in the rest of this page.
The image below is a detail from SKN's triptych for the Royal Academy of Music, which best described at the RAM's online museum and best seen at the BBC/PCF site.
Stanley Kennedy North folk dance book, 1921
Stanley North, by then calling himself Stanley Kennedy North, in recognition of his marriage to Helen Kennedy, illustrated and (presumably) produced this marvellous little book, Mr North’s Maggot (so called after a folk dance formulation). It is dedicated to Helen and has a foreword by Cecil Sharp, the great revivalist… Read more...
Stanley North WW1 “Child’s ABC”, 1914
Sometime during the autumn of 1914 (I am presuming), my grandfather, Stanley North produced these marvellous images to illustrate Geoffrey Whitworth’s “Child’s ABC of the War”. It was in the spirit of much of the artistic and literary response to the declaration of war.
Here is a gallery of the… Read more...
79th Armoured Div souvenir, 1945
Gillian Parnell came across this remarkable cigarette box, presumably made in Hamburg in 1945 by or for the 79th Armoured Division. As of 25 August 2014, she has it on sale at eBay. Pix below.... Read more...
Loving the fake (#2 of 2): Human zoos
I love the "problem" of tourism and - most sharply - the problem of the "human zoo". Almost all our travel, at least where it involves looking at people rather than landscape or animals, has a dimension of anthropological voyeurism. Much of it is a matter of play-acting amongst imagined peasantries or primitives. This has now reached new heights of self-consciousness, and is blissfully funny as well as serious.... Read more...
Loving the fake (#1 of 2): Digital rip-offs
I love the idea of fake art in the age of digital rip-offs. To put it in grander terms, I love the "issue" of conservation - facsimile, and reproduction, actually - in an age of mass culture and digitalisation. (In my next blog, I want to riff in rather the same way about the modern issue of tourism and anthropology, flowing from Human Zoo tourism.) We have entered a wonderful time in which re-envisioning, for instance, Tutankhamun, Seti I and and Piranesi fairly make the mind explode with potential. I explore some of this below the fold: Read more...
Jamini Roy: BBC stuck in anti-colonialism
I have been listening to an interesting show, From Bengal to Baker Street, about the Indian painter Jamini Roy. Poor old Radio 4 couldn't get beyond its anti-colonial meta-narrative... Read more...
Lovely WW1 (and other) horse art
The St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington always boxes above its weight and its current show, "Home Lad Home, the War Horse story" is no exception. It isn't an enormous display, but it is very moving on several counts, and not least its beauty and - more surprisingly - its positivity. This show and the fine town which houses the gallery make a wonderful away-day. Read more...
Brutalism: Big it up for Meades
Jonathan Meades is a vital figure, a sort of a Christopher Hitchens for architecture, with a dash of Ian Nairn, but considerable wallops of Suggsy, and a undertone of some late 18th Century person (wonderful to think it might be JM's admired Burke himself). I very much approve his appreciation of Brutalism, though I would go further and wider.... Read more...
Selsey “Wave”: Hokusai homage
I am fond of the Selsey "Wave" and its three-dimensional homage to the great 19th Century print by Hokusai... Read more...