Anyone for doubles?
At first glance, Eric Ravilious’s 1930 triptych Tennis reveals a typical afternoon of leisure enjoyed by a group of privileged young men and women, some rather amateurishly playing a game of doubles, a couple canoodling on the bank, two leaving the scene to do something else.
A Sussex Farmhouse
At the 2023 edition of the British Art Fair, on the wall of London dealer Harry Moore-Gwynn’s first-floor stand, a vibrant little oil painting caught my eye…
The Missing Henry Moore
Students sat on it, danced around it, draped themselves across it, loved it, loathed it, ignored it… and then it was gone…
Wren in Sussex
2023 marked the 300th anniversary of the death of the polymath Sir Christopher Wren: astronomer, mathematician, physicist, anatomist and undoubtedly one of the country’s greatest architects.
Is there any truth to the attribution of Wren’s name to the design of several buildings in West Sussex?
Mystery Castle
This collage by John Piper, Newhaven, The Castle, 1934, raises several questions. Like: where was the pub called ‘The Castle’ located? And: ‘how come there are two lighthouses?’
The Peril of Yellow
It’s one of those yarns that has gone down in art history folklore. When Oscar Wilde was arrested for gross indecency, at the Cadogan Hotel in Sloane Street on April 5, 1895, he was carrying a yellow book under his arm…
Picasso’s Pint
Pablo Picasso, visiting friends in Sussex, walks into the Six Bells in Chiddingly, and orders a pint. The landlord pours it, and asks him to pay. Picasso says he has no cash, but offers to draw a sketch, instead…
The Mystery of the Missing Long Man
This familiar Eric Ravilious image, entitled Train Landscape, is not all it seems. In fact, it is not entirely Eric’s own work…