Visual Research

In a world engineered for the verbal thinker, those of us with a visual brain can often be overlooked and underestimated. In this landmark book, international bestselling author and activist Temple Grandin transforms our understanding of how our brains are wired differently. Bringing together cutting-edge research and her own experience as a visual thinker, Grandin reveals a ground-breaking new approach to revolutionizing modern structures such as education, health and media so that they equally serve people with all kinds of minds. 

A commentary on the Pierre Bonnard exhibition recorded at the press view on Monday January 21, 2018. Views figure studies and landscapes made between 1900 and 1940 and responds to the conception of the compositions with their radiant color fields.

The Titian Show at the National Gallery here in London has just opened to the public again. It was available for just three days before the big lockdown. Now, it is with us once more, though on rather different terms from what was the case previously. You have to book a time. You have to be wearing a mask. You have to maintain distance between yourself and other visitors booked in for the same slot. Is it worth the hassle? Yes, of course it is. Titian is one of the greatest figures in the history of Western art.

Marina Vaizey and Anne Blood consider the historical impact of photography on the fine and interpretive arts, from pioneers such as Hill and Adamson, Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre to Edward Steichen and Man Ray. The documentary power and graphic clarity of the medium challenged and persuaded artists such as Degas, Sickert, Warhol, and innumerable creative voices. In their essays Marina and Anne explore the conjunctions and variations where document and dream intermingle.

Explores the structure and development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the mid-19th century and works that figure among the most enduring and generally popular in British art. Renowned writer and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith contributes a study of the brotherhood of seven artists and their interconnection and intricate links with the social establishment of the time. James Cahill has a special interest in the movement, having studied Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Holman Hunt. He reviews a major exhibition of 150 works at Tate Britain launched in September 2012.

The exhibition attempts a revaluation of the pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid 19th century, as Dr Marsh indicates it is not about gender competition. Rather, it's about rebalancing the contribution of partners, models, and studio managers. It is also about creative discourse and the other significant roles undertaken by women associated with individual artists.

Cv/VAR series 52 features an interview with American artist James Turrell recorded at Michael Hue Williams London in June 1996.

A study of Aubrey Beardsley's work exhibited at Tate Britain until May 25, 2020. The author considers the darkly vigorous imagery of the short lived genius, his graphic work for the notorious Yellow Book, and sublimely erotic illustrations for Lysistrata by Aristophane and Salome by Oscar Wilde, which frank imagery even shocked the author.

Cv/VAR series 146 reviews the work of Damien Hirst (b.Bristol 1965), presented in a retrospective exhibition spanning 20 years, held at Tate Modern, April to September 2012. It explores the development of his art - from the controversial animal vitrines and beautiful butterfly composites, to an extensive series of spot paintings, where the artist engaged in a complex invigilation of coded systems that govern daily existence.

In September 1972, three graduates rented two floors above a cash and carry warehouse at 65A Lisson Street, West London. After a couple of months, one emptied his studio, the first floor front room, and opened the space for exhibitions. There followed a spate of invented artists which made humorous comments on the high-flown conceptual arena. In 1974, the gallery strengthened its identity with the Gallery London Displays, a series developed with sculptor Vaughan Grylls.

An anthology of essays and reviews by the eminent art historian and writer, Edward Lucie-Smith. The articles cover a broad span, from the Italian Renaissance of Giotto and Antonello da Messina, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, progressing to Rubens, Velázquez, and Ingres, with essays on William Hogarth, John Constable, and John Everett Millais for British art. With the experience of his landmark publications on modern art, which remain in print, the author sweeps the listener on a fabulous journey of perception.

Clare Lilley, head curator of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, gives an interview to Cv/VAR in which she describes her own career path to the YSP and gives a detailed description of the history, aims, and initiatives of Britain's largest environment for contemporary sculpture, with special projects involving artists such as David Nash, James Turrell, Jaume Plensa, and Anthony Caro.

One of the commonest and most loosely used terms in any discussion of contemporary art is the word avant-garde. Indeed it often seems to be taken for granted that valid contemporary art and avant-garde art are synonymous.

A collection of reviews and studies of photographers published since 2001. Includes David Bailey, Horst, Cecil Beaton, Don McCullin, Lee Miller, Francesca Woofman, E.O.Hoppe, and others.

Interviewed during the installation of "Ghost" at Chisenhale Gallery East London in 1990, sculptor Rachel Whiteread describes her initial experience as an assistant to Alison Wilding and employment as a theatrical props maker. She reveals the development of "Ghost", cast from a room at 286 Archway, and gives details discovered in her first major project of replication.

In this study, Art, Poetry, and WW1 by Edward Lucie-Smith of writing, poetry, and painting in the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War, the author considers the historical impact on the general psyche of the calamitous events, reflected in the expression of poets and visual artists. He establishes a continuity to the theme with reference to works by Velázquez, Watteau, Goya, and others, in their treatment of the spectacle of battle and the horrors of war and human conflict.

Feature by David Rose first published in Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 2/4 December 1989, in which he describes craft practices of individual makers in the county of West Cork, Ireland. The monograph also includes a survey of Dublin colleges of art and design by Margaret MacNamidhe, first published in Cv Journal 4/2 July 1991. From Cv/VAR Archive. Crafts Directory surveys practices in the applied and decorative arts in the UK and Ireland. The anthology of interviews and features was first published in the quarterly review Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 1988-91, and includes showcases of emerging practices, studies of crafts education, and a comprehensive index of specialist producers and suppliers in the flourishing arena of crafts design and distribution.

This audiobook is a review of David Hocking's Drawing from Life exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It explores early self-portraits from the 1950s and portraits of friends and associates, including Celia Birtwell, Gregory Evans, and Maurice Payne.

A review of Anselm Kiefer exhibition at White Cube Bermonday tours room by room, with analytic descriptions of the large scale works on view.

A recorded visit to van Gogh and Britain considers the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) placed in the context of British art and literature of the 19th century and his effect on succeeding generations of artists.