Attended three exhibitions last night. I went to Danny Katz's gallery in Bond Street where his son Robin showed me round his latest exhibition and made my mouth water by taking out of the safe a tiny Donatello which he allowed me to hold. The price of the object had about two noughts too many on it for me. We then walked across to the other side of the road for the opening (or to be more accurate the closing down) exhbition at Agnew's. Mr Agnew's charming daughter was at the door to meet us, only reminding me that I have known three generations of the family during the past 40 years, and it's sad to see this magnificent gallery having to move premises because of the vast expense of running a major site in Bond Street. The exhibition itself had a wonderful Henry Moore, an interesting Linnell, as well as fine examples of Palmer and Lawrence. The gallery will be sadly missed by those of us who have over the years taken its presence for granted.
I left at 6.30pm to attend the Royal Academy's buyers preview of their Summer Exhibition, which officially opened at 6.45pm. On entering the Small Weston Room, I spotted an acrylic by Atsuko Fujii of a melon with a spoon suspended above it for £1,500. I dashed at speed to the sales counter to find that it had already been sold - which only shows how keen the serious buyers are, because an hour later hundreds of red dots could be found all over the gallery.
On entering the courtyard, I was interviewed by the BBC and the interviewer asked if I thought it was possible to be shocked by anything these days, referring to the picture descreetly hidden behind a screen of a zebra making love to a naked woman. I had watched an elderly woman storm off in anger to berate an innocent academy porter, but my own view is that it simply isn't a very good picture. The exhibition is becoming braver by the year, and for young collectors it is possible to get really good prints of artists such as Craigie Aitchison, Frederick Cuming and Allen Jones as well as many others at a sensible price. Well worth a visit.
I left at 6.30pm to attend the Royal Academy's buyers preview of their Summer Exhibition, which officially opened at 6.45pm. On entering the Small Weston Room, I spotted an acrylic by Atsuko Fujii of a melon with a spoon suspended above it for £1,500. I dashed at speed to the sales counter to find that it had already been sold - which only shows how keen the serious buyers are, because an hour later hundreds of red dots could be found all over the gallery.
On entering the courtyard, I was interviewed by the BBC and the interviewer asked if I thought it was possible to be shocked by anything these days, referring to the picture descreetly hidden behind a screen of a zebra making love to a naked woman. I had watched an elderly woman storm off in anger to berate an innocent academy porter, but my own view is that it simply isn't a very good picture. The exhibition is becoming braver by the year, and for young collectors it is possible to get really good prints of artists such as Craigie Aitchison, Frederick Cuming and Allen Jones as well as many others at a sensible price. Well worth a visit.
3 Comments:
Hi sir
Its really good to know that you are as much an art addcit as your book tells me. And I'm sure that the zebra and the naked woman was sold at some real price.
The first book of yours that I read was False Impression and it so fascinated me that I've read it 3 times now and I have a replica of almost every Van Gogh.
As it so happens I finished The Prodigal Daughter just a minute before discovering your blog. I was actually reluctant to read it at first because the back cover said it continued the story of Kane & Abel and I haven't had that one at my disposal yet. The Prodigal Daughter has just made me more enthusiastic about Kane & Abel now. Great work sir...
Lord Archer,
I just wanted to drop a comment to tell you that I am a huge fan of all your books and was delighted to discover you are a fellow blogger as well. I have bookmarked this site for future reference. My all-time favourite book is Kane and Abel - I have read it 5 times at least, and recommend it to everyone.
By the way, over on my own blog, which covers persuasion, productivity and the art of the written word, I just launched a fun micro-writing competition where entrants must submit their best specimen of wordplay in 140 characters or less.
Many in the blogosphere have graciously donated prizes to make the winner's loot attractive, but to cap it off I have announced that I will be giving the winner a copy of your Collected Short Stories and a copy of Cat O'Nine as well, in honour of the art of clever brevity!
(I was planning to simply purchase them on Amazon, but let me know if there is somewhere I can get a better deal!)
Keep up the good work (can't wait for your next novel), and come on over and check out the contest at the link above if you get the chance, it should be a lot of fun as more entries come in.
Cheers,
Daniel Smith
I'd like to produce a work of art with too many zeros on it.
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