Art Review

December 2013
Plum Button Art and Design Reviews and Reports :
This is the inaugural issue of a new feature I will be providing to my website, where I share artist-designer reviews and reports on topics related to living art, design, and life, in monthly articles. The question of ‘What is art? ’ has confounded some people for many years, but an answer seems simple to me: It’s how humankind expresses ourselves, in a vast array of methods. And that is what I will be writing about, examples of art and design expressed in the world. This year, Plum Button had the opportunity to travel to London, England and while there, visit some truly wonderful museums, galleries, and other sites with wonderful examples of Artwork. Below is a list of 6  excellent stops for any artist-designer  or art appreciator visiting London, England, U.K.:

The Victoria and Albert Museum: Their website ( http://www.vam.ac.uk/)  proclaims itself the “Worlds greatest museum of art and design” and I’m here to say,  in an era of advertising overload, that description is 100% accurate!  As a working designer and artist, I have never seen such a wonderful collection of art and design in one place, and that’s including New York and Boston.  The fact that it includes true design ad well as fine art is a testament to the breadth of items in the collection. The museum is so huge it’s impossible to pick just one section as a favorite, so suffice it to say it’s all amazing. From the Suits of Armor and tapestries to the suspended piece of flattened musical instruments (which sounds odd but is very cool to see)- it’s all a must-see for any artist designer visiting London.

The Cortauld Gallery, ( http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/index.shtml ) is a small (as compared to huge ones like the also lovely National Gallery) wonderful gallery, which during our visit, was hosting a special exhibit about Pablo Picasso’s ‘breakthrough year 1901’., and how I heard about the site in the first place. I believe the Picasso exhibit is over as I write this, but there were so many other wonderful examples of artwork there that I must include this delightful gallery in my list. We saw pieces such as  Edouard Manet’s  ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergere” , Edgar Deas ‘Two Dancers on the Stage”  and Claude Monet’s ‘Vase of Flowers” . I’m not sure which pieces were part of the permanent collection, I just know I was supremely happy we spent time there. It was a little hard to find, sort of tucked away, but worth seeking it out!

The Churchill War Rooms  (http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/churchill-war-rooms) sounded intriguing and lived up to our expectations.   We went with another couple and all got lost in the experience, in a good way. It’s not a museum in the traditional sense of the word, but more like an immersive dive into the history and past. As an American visiting it, it had countless fascinating pieces of information about Churchill and the war itself for me. The manner in which the museum’s designers combine old,  ( and I assumed original)  features together with new modern tools to convey data to a wide range of viewers is remarkable. I hope whoever did the design work got some kind of award, or something because it’s a brilliant example of creative communication to the masses.

The London Transport Museum http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/  The examples of past Subway art and posters were very fun to see. They have an exhibit running now until Jan. 5, 2014, and anyone interested in graphic art would probably find the poster exhibit an enjoyable way to spend some time. I myself love maps of all kinds.

Of course, the National Gallery (http://www.nationalgallery.co.uk/ ) and National Portrait Gallery (http://www.npg.org.uk/ were both wonderful.  We saw a special  Man Ray exhibit at the Portrait Gallery which was excellent. And at the National Gallery, were two pieces, in particular, I had to buy postcards of: “The Boulevard Montmarte at Night” by Camile Pisaro and ‘The Umbrellas” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Both locations are wonderful, and London is lucky to have them.