Queuing in the rain

This morning, I joined my colleagues from the Lords and Commons, for a private showing at the Royal Academy of Arts of The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters. This has been one of the most successful shows the RA has put on in its history, and you only need to be there for a few minutes to see why. It is a wonderful collection of the master's work, and I didn't realise what an assiduous letter-writer he was, in particularly to his brother Theo. What the letters illustrate is how seriously he took his work, always wanting to experiment, always wishing to be innovative. It's sad that he never lived to see, or even glimpse, what a world-renowned artist he would become. It would never have crossed his mind that at the Royal Academy in London in 2010 they would be queuing in the rain to see his work. Well, I was fortunate enough not to have to queue in the rain, and can highly recommend it, but be warned, it's only on until 18th April.

There were several scholars present, so I posed to them the question, who was the first to use string or wire in a sculpture - Moore or Hepworth, and was informed that Hepworth set the pace and Moore caught on, but being more famous, people assumed he'd invented the process. They were both then sued by a Spaniard who claimed he was the first. Whatever you achieve in life, someone will tell you they did it first. I remember Steven Spielberg remarking that the only film on which he hadn't been sued for plagarism was his first, The Sugarland Express. So in my usual naive way I asked him why not, to which he replied, 'It didn't make any money, Jeffrey.'