Reviews..

I am currently reading (yes! Pete - reading!) a biography by Mitzi McCall about her husband's life Charles McCall (well both of their lives), .  I bought my studio easel from his estate about 10 years ago.   It was encrusted in paint and I'm adding to it.  I collected it from his wonderful studio near Sloane Square.  I was reading last night about his first one man show at the Leicester Galleries in the 1950's.  An Oliver Brown from the gallery expressed his concerns to Mitzi on the days that followed the opening that Charles would be upset by the press coverage.  Neville Wallace gave him a good illustrated write up in the Observer but Eric Newton in the Sunday Times was 'rather waspish and fitted the exhibition into a theme he was writing on other exhibits about repetition'.  … "All the other reviews were kind and there was a very pleasant one in the Daily Mail by Pierre Jeanerat."… Oh My God!  Any of us would settle for the waspish one.  Wouldn't that be amazing for critics to turn up to a show and write a criticism on it!  Imagine having to worry about 'what the critics say'.   Anyway, the paintings are being framed by the Ashleys - who are amazing and the catalogue is currently being printed. Messums have done a superb job as ever putting it together.  I know it sounds smug but I am so lucky to be promoted by such a fantastic gallery.  Everything is done so well.  It opens on 22nd October and runs until 15th November in 8 Cork Street.   It will be one of the last shows at number 8 sadly as Messums move over the road while that side is renovated.

'Regent Street Looking South' oil on canvas 30 x 35 inches

I did the NEAC digital selection with 5 other members of the NEAC committee yesterday at The Mall.  I am not a fan of digital selection at all and would prefer we did it all looking at paintings in the flesh.  It is a cost cutting exercise (although there are benefits for those submitting too).  All the open exhibitions now do it but it puts the emphasis on 'The Image' and not oil paint.  Apparently it is a necessary evil and we erred on the side of caution selecting rather than rejecting.  We saw some really good stuff…. I think!?  Anyway good luck to anyone who submitted and if you were rejected it wasn't me. It was the others!