News

InSight No. 109

Lynn Chadwick | Beast VII September 8, 2022 Like many artists of his generation, the sculptor Lynn Chadwick instilled his work with a mood of trauma and struggle.... Read more

InSight No. 108

John Armstrong | On the Promenade, 1947 August 24, 2022 Retreating to Cornwall in 1945, John Armstrong began making visionary paintings of leaves and feathers. His imagery brims with surreal... Read more

InSight No. 107

Damien Hirst | Trust, 2003 July 13, 2022 Once the chief enfant terrible of the Young British Artists, Damien Hirst has long since swapped formaldehyde sharks for a... Read more

InSight No. 106

Leon Kossoff | Seated Figure No. 1 June 29, 2022 The writer N.M. Seedo was the defining model of Leon Kossoff’s early career. A painting of her - Seated Figure... Read more

InSight. No. 105

Paul Nash | Sunrise over Valley, 1943 June 16, 2022 Paul Nash's view of the world was transformed by an imaginative grasp of landscape history, an interest in druidic ritual,... Read more

InSight No. 104

Jubilee Edition | Craigie Aitchison | The Herald, 1953 June 2, 2022 To mark the occasion of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, InSight considers a painting made in the year of her coronation.... Read more

InSight No. 103

Duncan Grant | Portrait of Simon Bussy, circa 1922-25 May 26, 2022 A man of good ties and a painter of curiously vivid pictures, Simon Bussy was one of the few truly... Read more

InSight No. 102

Albert Irvin | Cloud, circa 1960-65 May 11, 2022 Between 1955 and 1965, ‘a tremendous mood of confidence’ charged British abstract painting with freshness and profundity. As the Second... Read more

InSight No. 101

Euan Uglow | Seated Nude, circa 1954 April 27, 2022 In the 1950s, the Slade School of Fine Art fostered a new generation of figure painters. Long hours in the... Read more

InSight No. 100

Harold Gilman | London Street Scene in Snow March 30, 2022 For its one hundredth edition, InSight considers a remarkable London street scene by Harold Gilman – a famously diligent, slow... Read more

InSight No. XCIX

William Crozier | Still Life March 16, 2022 To coincide with Piano Nobile’s new exhibition William Crozier: Seize the Flow’r, InSight considers a significant group of still life... Read more

InSight No. XCVIII

Ben Nicholson | November 1960 (Anne) March 2, 2022 Ben Nicholson returned to relief carving with gusto shortly before moving to Switzerland in 1958. Throughout his Swiss period, his... Read more

InSight No. XCVII

Irma Stern | Summer Morning in Madeira February 16, 2022 Well-travelled and inquisitive, the South African artist Irma Stern used her work to explore the people and places she visited.... Read more

InSight No. XCVI

Barbara Hepworth | Two Forms February 2, 2022 To Barbara Hepworth, the act of carving by hand was highly significant. After giving birth to triplets in October 1934,... Read more

InSight No. XCV

David Hockney | Portrait of Bernard Nevill, 1970s January 20, 2022 THE PEACOCK REVOLUTION SAW THE TRANSFORMATION OF MENSWEAR IN BRITAIN, WITH FROTHY HANDKERCHIEFS AND DRESSY PRINTS. BERNARD NEVILL AND DAVID... Read more

InSight No. XCIV

Craigie Aitchison | Butterflies in a Landscape, 1964 December 20, 2021 Piano Nobile is pleased to represent the Estate of Craigie Aitchison, a remarkable artist who often achieved perfection through simplicity.... Read more

InSight No. XCIII

Spencer Gore | Country Landscape, 1909-10 c. December 9, 2021 Spencer Gore was ‘a perfect modern’, beloved of his contemporaries and the author of bright, cleanly executed visions of the... Read more

InSight No. XCII

Elisabeth Frink | Assassins I, 1963 December 2, 2021 Caught between the exciting, sometimes shocking events of the time and an intense, insular focus on artistic form, it was... Read more

InSight XCI

Joan Miró | Untitled, 1959 November 24, 2021 A contemporary and compatriot of Picasso, Joan Miró won fame as a Surrealist in the 1920s and later built an... Read more

InSight No. XC

Jean Cooke | Cave Painting I, 1965 c. November 17, 2021 Sussex's chalk landscape has inspired painters and writers from Enid Bagnold and William Nicholson to the subject of this week's... Read more

InSight No. LXXXIX

Walter Sickert | Nuit d'Été, circa 1906 November 10, 2021 In this final instalment focusing on Sickert, InSight compares one of his most significant nudes with paintings by his friends,... Read more

InSight LXXXVIII

Walter Sickert | This Venice that the Italians called 'Venezia' November 3, 2021 This Venice that the Italians called 'Venezia' From Dickens to the prostitutes of Venice, this week InSight delves deeper into... Read more

InSight LXXXVI

Walter Sickert, The New Bedford October 27, 2021 Over the next three weeks, to celebrate Piano Nobile's current exhibition SICKERT: The Theatre of Life, InSight delves into the... Read more

InSight LXXXVI

Euan Uglow | Still Life with Honeysuckle | 1968 October 20, 2021 Euan Uglow was a painter’s artist, exploring proportion and perspective with fastidious care and transcribing appearances into art with cautious... Read more

InSight No. LXXXV

Craigie Aitchison | Baker’s Egg, 1974 October 13, 2021 A lifelong lover of ‘kitsch’, Craigie Aitchison achieved a rare synthesis of style and content in paintings that stand out... Read more

InSight No. LXXXIV

Gluck | Cottage with Cat, 1967 October 6, 2021 This week Insight considers the artist born Hannah Gluckstein. Shedding the gender that was assigned at birth, Gluckstein became Gluck,... Read more

InSight No. LXXXIII

R.B. Kitaj | Fulham Road Cinema Bathers, 1988 September 29, 2021 A regular and avid cinema-goer, R.B. Kitaj revered the medium of film. He often borrowed figures from film stills and... Read more

InSight No. LXXXI

Walter Sickert | Portrait of Mrs Barrett, 1906 September 15, 2021 Ahead of Piano Nobile’s major exhibition opening next Thursday, SICKERT: The Theatre of Life, InSight considers one of Sickert’s earliest... Read more

InSight No. LXXX

Albert Irvin O.B.E, R.A. | Lexington II, 1989 September 8, 2021 A pioneering abstract painter of the post-war years, Albert Irvin OBE RA made some of his most ambitious and inspiring... Read more

InSight No. LXXIX

Frank Auerbach | Reclining Nude, 1954 September 1, 2021 Though Frank Auerbach received his formal training at St Martin's School of Art, the evening classes of David Bomberg which... Read more

InSight No. LXXVIII

David Bomberg | Ronda El Barrio, San Francisco, 1954 July 21, 2021 As summer heat starts to build, withering the grass and scorching the earth, David Bomberg's Spanish vistas provide an equivalent... Read more

InSight No. LXXVII

Barbara Hepworth | Maquette, Theme and Variations, 1970 July 14, 2021 Barbara Hepworth's final large-scale commission prompted a late flowering in her career. The project inspired a companion piece, a work... Read more

InSight No. LXXVI

Barbara Hepworth | Reclining Figures July 7, 2021 Over the next two weeks, InSight presents two works by one of the great sculptors of the twentieth century: Barbara... Read more

InSight No. LXX

Graham Sutherland | Armoured Form June 30, 2021 In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, Graham Sutherland experienced a burst of artistic invention and critical recognition. Graham... Read more

InSight No. LXXIII

Lynn Chadwick | Seated Figure I, 1973 June 16, 2021 Internationally renowned and highly inventive with his materials, most notably his adoption of the plaster-like substance Stolit, Lynn Chadwick was... Read more

InSight No. LXXII

Paul Nash | Spring Landscape, circa 1930s June 10, 2021 The landscape art of Paul Nash (1889-1946) encompasses both modernist impulses and a traditional rural life. Paul Nash Spring Landscape,... Read more

InSight No. LXXI

Tony Bevan | Locked Fingers June 2, 2021 Grinding his own pigments and working from his own image, Tony Bevan is a self-sustaining artist of inventive means and... Read more

InSight No. LXX

Cedric Morris | Portrait of Rupert Doone May 26, 2021 Now on view in Piano Nobile’s exhibition ‘Defining British Art’, this portrait was painted in the wanderjahr which Cedric Morris... Read more

InSight No. LXIX

Grayson Perry | Map of Nowhere and The American Dream May 12, 2021 Piano Nobile’s new exhibition Grayson Perry: Ceramics and Prints includes two examples of the artist’s map-like works. InSight considers the... Read more

InSight No. LXVIII

Grayson Perry | Essex, Middlesex, Sussex and Layers of Meaninglessness May 4, 2021 To coincide with Piano Nobile’s Frieze New York Viewing Room and a new exhibition, Grayson Perry: Ceramics and Prints, InSight... Read more

InSight No. LXVII

Glyn Philpot | Two Muses at the Tomb of a Poet, 1937 April 28, 2021 After a period living in Paris in 1931, Glyn Philpot changed his style. As a friend said, the new style... Read more

InSight No. LXVI

Mark Gertler | Still Life, Vase with Flowers April 21, 2021 Despite perennial bouts of mental and physical ill health, Mark Gertler remained intensely focused on his work. The mid-1920s marked... Read more

InSight No. LXV

Anthony Caro | Table Piece CXLI April 14, 2021 The mid-1970s was a time of increased exposure for Anthony Caro and his rising international fame coincided with a highly... Read more

InSight No. LXIV

Irma Stern | Portrait of a Woman April 7, 2021 After settling in Cape Town in 1920, Irma Stern started making regular painting trips to tribes around the Cape. Working... Read more

InSight No. LXIII

Ben Nicholson | 1971 (two squares and very green) March 31, 2021 In 1965, Ben Nicholson discovered a remarkable field of ancient standing stones in Brittany. For the next six years, he... Read more

InSight No. LXII

Spencer Gore | The White Horse, Hertingfordbury, 1909 March 24, 2021 Described by his friend Sickert as ‘a perfect modern’, Spencer Gore’s early paintings belong to the world of Impressionism. InSight... Read more

InSight No. LX

Ivon Hitchens | Sussex Landscape March 10, 2021 Ivon Hitchens’s style was always highly individual. The free approach to colour and design in his later easel paintings developed... Read more

InSight No. LIX

Ithell Colquhoun | Self-Portrait March 3, 2021 With just one month until entries close for the 2021 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize, InSight considers a self-portrait by Ithell... Read more

InSight No. LVIII

Ben Nicholson | Pisa, 1951 February 24, 2021 Ben Nicholson produced only a small number of intaglio prints in his career. Each example is marked by pictorial subtlety... Read more

InSight No. LVII

William Nicholson | The Grey Shawl February 17, 2021 For a blissful period of five years, the painter William Nicholson owned a rural retreat on the Sussex coast. The... Read more

InSight No. LVI

Frank Auerbach | Head of J.Y.M. February 10, 2021 Like his good friend Lucian Freud, another painter who worked unremittingly from life, Frank Auerbach is known for the schedule... Read more

InSight No. LV

Craigie Aitchison | Alan McNaught and Bird February 3, 2021 From 1962 until his death, Craigie Aitchison spent much of his career painting black sitters. He once said, ‘When people... Read more

InSight No. LIV

Michael Andrews | Garden at Noel Road January 27, 2021 Today, Islington is stereotyped as the domain of affluent socialists. When Michael Andrews lived there in the 1950s, however, it... Read more

InSight No. LIII

John Hoyland | 16.9.66 January 20, 2021 In a special edition of InSight, Sam Cornish considers the ‘pillars of space’ in John Hoyland’s work from the 1960s.... Read more

InSight No. LII

Walter Sickert | The Proposal January 13, 2021 Picasso reportedly declared that lesser artists borrow and great artists steal. Walter Sickert was an avowed thief, routinely making use... Read more

InSight No. LI

Bryan Wynter | Maremma January 6, 2021 Though Cornwall was a defining part of his work and his lifestyle, it was not the limit of Bryan Wynter’s... Read more

InSight No. L

Duncan Grant | Still Life with Compotier and Still Life December 21, 2020 Duncan Grant’s still-life paintings of the 1910s are remarkable for their stylistic variety. However, they were not just technically accomplished.... Read more

InSight No. XLIX

R.B. Kitaj | Fed Up, Again December 16, 2020 Despite his melancholic temperament, R.B. Kitaj made dazzling paintings which promised ‘not only to do Cézanne and Degas over again... Read more

InSight No. XLVIII

Leon Kossoff | School Building, Willesden, Winter December 9, 2020 Leon Kossoff lived and work his whole life in London. In the 1980s, however, a surge of recognition in the... Read more

InSight No. XLVII

Peter Coker | Fish with Grill December 2, 2020 Despite being closely related to contemporary Kitchen Sink realism, Peter Coker’s ‘meatscapes’ of the 1950s emerged from a direct engagement... Read more

InSight No. XLVI

Paul Nash | Sea Wall November 27, 2020 Paul Nash’s time in Swanage marked the high point of his interest in Surrealism. He was immensely fond of the... Read more

InSight No. XLV

Frank Auerbach | Building Site near St Paul's: Winter November 18, 2020 Building sites were a recurring subject in Frank Auerbach’s work of the mid-1950s. These cavernous, densely painted constructions won him... Read more

InSight No. XLIV

Raoul Dufy | Dans les prairies de l'Eure November 11, 2020 Horses were the life-long passion of Raoul Dufy. No other animal recurs so frequently in the history of art, yet... Read more

InSight No. XLIII

Gillian Ayres, Choo, 1996 November 4, 2020 One of the most independent British abstract painters of the later twentieth century, Gillian Ayres’s career spanned the swinging ‘sixties... Read more

InSight No. XLII

Lucie Rie | vases October 28, 2020 Born in Austria and displaced to Britain by the Nazis, Lucie Rie became one of the leading potters working in... Read more

InSight No. XLI

H. H. La Thangue, Beachcombers, c. 1891 October 21, 2020 Henry Herbert La Thangue belonged to a generation of talented, unassuming English painters. He worked doggedly from the subject outdoors... Read more

InSight No. XL

Ben Nicholson, November 1959 (Mycenae 3 - brown and blue) October 14, 2020 Ahead of Piano Nobile's Ben Nicholson exhibition, InSight considers a work which the artist made after swapping Cornwall for Switzerland... Read more

InSight No. XXXIX

Howard Hodgkin | Window (Indian Leaves) October 7, 2020 After his first visit to India in 1964, Howard Hodgkin continued a life-long relationship with the country. Near the end... Read more

InSight No. XXXVIII

Adam Birtwistle | Tutu, F.W. de Klerk and Mandela October 1, 2020 At a time of heightened awareness about racial inequality, these three portraits of South African anti-apartheid leaders have special poignance.... Read more

InSight No. XXXVII

Mark Gertler | Still Life, Flowers September 23, 2020 One of the precocious talents of his generation, Mark Gertler made advances in painting and forged connections among the Bloomsbury... Read more

InSight No. XXXVI

Édouard Vuillard | Marcelle Aron seated in the greenhouse at Ormesson September 16, 2020 Édouard Vuillard belonged to a generation of artists and writers who were fascinated with the domestic interior: a space that... Read more

InSight No. XXXV

Anthony Caro | Toward Centre September 9, 2020 In 1960, Anthony Caro crossed the Atlantic. Upon his return to Britain he began producing sculpture that was immediately recognised... Read more

InSight No. XXXIV

William Turnbull | 1-1965 September 2, 2020 The Scottish artist William Turnbull went between tachiste Paris and colour field New York, and devised a versatile succession of... Read more

InSight No. XXXIII

Fernand Léger | La Rue August 25, 2020 Fernand Léger’s art brought together the city’s thrumming with the peculiar lives of the people who live there. An ardent... Read more

InSight No. XXXII

John Golding | G III (Y.B.) August 18, 2020 A masterly scholar and a painter of light, John Golding was a man of divergent talents, beginning his exhibiting career... Read more

InSight No. XXXI

Gwen John | Sleeping Nun August 12, 2020 In late summer of 1903, Gwen John moved from Britain to France. Arriving by steamer in Bordeaux, she walked up... Read more

InSight No. XXX

Paula Rego | Island of the Lights from Pinocchio July 31, 2020 Growing up in Portugal in the 1940s, Paula Rego was awed by the technicolour riches and prancing creatures of one... Read more

InSight No. XXIX

Josef Herman | Women on the Shore July 29, 2020 Josef Herman was a British Polish emigré, bereaved by the atrocities of the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 and inspired by... Read more

InSight No. XXVIII

William Crozier | Black Lake July 21, 2020 In 1964, William Crozier appeared in a remarkable Arts Council exhibition of ‘Six Young Painters’. Amidst work by Peter Blake,... Read more