From Michaelangelo to Ryan Gander: Building the Royal Academy Collections. A talk by Hannah Higham Senior Curator, Royal Academy of Arts

Event date: 4 April 2025
Review by Janey Bevington

Hannah Higham at Norwich School Blake Studio

The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) surely must be one of the UK’s most iconic and well- loved institutions, but how much do we know of its history and its role today?

ncas members were treated to a fascinating overview and a deeper dive by Dr Hannah Higham, Senior Curator at the RA.

The RA was founded in 1768, with a petition to the King signed by 36 artists and architects seeking permission to "establish a society for promoting the Arts of Design". They were the original Royal Academicians. What’s more, they also proposed an annual exhibition (now known as the Summer Exhibition) and crucially, a School of Design. It is this aspect which sets the RA apart from other museums and galleries. As an Academy fostering contemporary fine art at their elite RA Schools, the RA not just promotes the appreciation and understanding of art, but also its practice.

The first RA President was Sir Joshua Reynolds; amongst other founding members were Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman who flew the flag for women in 1768. Other past Presidents, notably architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and painter Sir Alfred Munnings, courted controversy with their public dislike of ‘modern art’.

Hannah explained the, now many, aspects of the Academy, the curatorial staff being only part of the vast number of employees. Others are involved with the international loan exhibitions that were started in the late 19th century. Prior to this, there was only the annual Summer Exhibition. There’s a vast PR staff and those involved with day to day running, plus teachers and students in their RA Schools.

Since she arrived, Hannah has been involved with displaying the teaching collection at the RA. She explained that the Life Drawing Room is one of the most important rooms in the RA and has recently been restored along with the reinstallation of the marble busts used as models by the early Academicians.

It showcases anatomical drawings, engravings by and after Old Masters such as Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya and Tiepolo; plaster casts after the antique and écorché casts from dissected bodies; photographs from Eadweard Muybridge (Horse in Motion) and copies after Old Masters including an 16th-century copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper.

Hannah illustrated her talk with stunning photos of some of this significant collection that includes works dating from the 18th century, ensuring that she picked out contemporary pieces for the discerning ncas audience! 

The RA vast collection is free to view and now contains about 935 paintings, 350 sculptures, 700 plaster casts, 25,000 prints and drawings and 5,000 historic photographs. The Collection's central focus is on British art and artists from the 18th century to the present day.  

The collection includes paintings by JMW Turner, John Constable, John Everett Millais, John Singer Sargent, Stanley Spencer, David Hockney and Frank Bowling; sculptures by John Flaxman, John Gibson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Elisabeth Frink and Yinka Shonibare; and architectural drawings by John Soane, Edwin Lutyens, Colin St. John Wilson, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers and David Adjaye.

ncas would like to thank Hannah for her excellent and beautifully illustrated talk and the Norwich School for hosting at the Blake Studio.

Hannah Higham with ncas Chair Chris Mardell

“I go into the world with an open mind”. A talk by sculptor Sir Richard Long CBE, RA

Event date: 25 February 2025
Review by Danusia Wurm

Circle in Africa. Mulanje Mountain, Malawi, 1978

Imagine a slowing down of time. Imagine “seeing” stillness. Imagine the celebration of a journey’s end.

This was the experience of the sell-out audience at Sir Richard Long’s fascinating and magnificently illustrated talk, which took place at the Norwich University of the Art’s state-of-the art auditorium.

Richard Long has been at the forefront of land art for more than half a century. A pioneer of conceptual practices in the 1960s, his expanded approach to sculpture has consistently taken the medium out of the studio into the natural world and around the globe, using time, space, distance, navigation, perception, the elements and the geological forces that have shaped the landscape around us as both his tools and his vocabulary. Long has sited sculpture on all five continents, as well as in many of the world’s most significant galleries and museums. 

“My work has become a simple metaphor of life.”

— Sir Richard Long

Long’s practice involves walking great distances in the wilderness, then pausing to make works referencing natural and cosmic phenomena experienced along the way. He uses walking, therefore, as both medium and measure, and his works act as a direct response to the world in which he lives. This way of working offers the potential to make sculpture anywhere and at any time, free from the constraints that can otherwise arise with producing art.

Using earth, rocks, sticks and other natural materials and forces ranging from water and gravity to clouds and constellations of stars, Long leaves a mark or arrangement within an ever-shifting elemental terrain that exerts its own laws of regulation over the end-result. This is his way of expressing ideas about time and space, and what it means to be human when removed from the cacophony of contemporary life.

People constantly ask Long ‘why always circles and lines and walking?’

“Every place in the world is different, so even though I might be repeating circles, every circle is different. The archetype of the circle emphasizes the cosmic variety of everything, and this gives it its power, beauty, understandability, and resonance”. 

“I’m not a political animal.  I’m an artist animal. ”

— Sir Richard Long

Given his affinity to the natural environment, people also question whether Long is an environmentalist.

Long says “Green politics wasn’t really invented when I started. My work comes out of wanting to make art in new ways. The world outside the studio represented a fantastically colossal opportunity to engage with the physical world. It was my interest in making new art that took me into the landscape. I’m not a political animal. I’m an artist animal. But obviously my work does celebrate nature and the wonderful landscapes that cover most of the planet.”

“I wouldn’t be the artist I am without a camera”

— Sir Richard long

The simple majesty of Long’s physical sculptural works is matched by his remarkable photography, which records it for posterity.   He says “I wouldn’t be the artist I am without a camera. It’s a bridge to how my works find their way into the world.  You know what I do because I have shown you what I have done”.

Long’s accompanying words describing his philosophy and art work, realised in numerous books, are equally as powerful. Perhaps put at its most eloquent, he says “I go into the world with an open mind”.

ncas would like to thank Richard Long for his totally absorbing narrative and Norwich University of the Arts for hosting and their excellent help on the day.

I would also like to namecheck Nicolas Wroe, Patrick Barkham and Ina Cole whose excellent articles I have sampled. 

Money for Old Rope. Rejacketing the Classics at Penguin Books and Beyond. A talk by David Pearson

Event date: 13 February 2025
Review by Danusia Wurm

Poster featuring David Pearson for Melbourne Writers Festival 2015, David Pearson

In a lively and beautifully illustrated talk, acclaimed book designer David Pearson took us on a fascinating journey focusing on the creation of a book cover from original concept to the final product, with many intriguing diversions along the way.

Graduating from Central St Martins in London in 2002, David cheekily blagged a job at Penguin Books where he worked as a text designer and later, cover designer. His cover design for Penguin’s Great Ideas series in association with fellow designers Phil Baines, Catherine Dixon and Alistair Hall, earned him international recognition, as did his wonderful covers for French publisher Éditions Zulma.

He left Penguin to establish his own studio in 2007 where he has since worked with some of the world’s leading publishers and authors including Margaret Atwood, John le Carré, Cormac McCarthy and George Orwell.

David specialises in print-based design. Like an artist, he works with lettering in an expressive way, seeing letters as “individual characters” on the page. His craft is to “lead the eye around the page” and then - the big leap - from the front cover onto the first page.

Describing the process, once he accepts the brief (note: David never gets to choose his books) his first step is to set certain parameters and limits. “Book design is at its most fun when you’ve got something to kick against”. But the core elements of good design, clear vision, coherence, and an ability to convey a story, always remain.

Perhaps fostered by too much time spent in Penguin’s vast archives in Rugby as a young intern, David positively relishes the meticulous research into suitable period titles, fonts, words and images used to give the cover context, imbuing it with the right look and feel. The cover might be text or illustration led. As illustration isn’t David’s forte, he is in the happy position to employ illustrators that he admires and has always wanted to work with.

The collaborative process with illustrators, fosters innovation and imagination. Creating a different visual language for each book is hugely stimulating. And as someone who enjoys “spinning plates”, David is happy exploring a different approach every time.

Looking to the future, David is optimistic about the world of books be they material or in the ether. To this end, he acknowledges the huge significance of social media. “Tic Toc has made reading cool” he says. Additionally, he cites the growth of Zine culture, which is exciting and accessible, as helping support book sales. Successful “cover reveal” launches on Instagram can hugely influence sales. You heard it here first... authors now care about their book covers!

Right to left: David Pearson with Andy Campbell, Norwich School, Blake Studio

ncas thanks David for his superb insight into the world of book design and Norwich School’s Andy Campbell for his introduction and excellent Q&A.

With typical modesty, David didn’t mention that he has been listed as one of Britain’s Top 50 Designers by The Guardian, is a member of the prestigious international association Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) and in 2015, was appointed Royal Designer for Industry, the highest accolade for designers in the UK. He is also founder of The Book Cover Review.

Alan Walters, ncas Patron: Teaching History through Paintings

Event date: 29 January 2025
Review by Janey Bevington

Elements Panel 5. Climate-Society Interactions 1850-2020 by Gennadiy Ivanov

Alan’s beautifully illustrated talk led us through history using artists of the day as a reference at every step.

For many of us it threw light on the meaning of the word ‘Contemporary’ and we came away with the realisation of how art of its time has manipulated our ideas of history as we know it today. Contemporary applies to any piece of art that has been created in its day.

Alan’s carefully chosen illustrations obliged us to reflect on how, before man’s ability to write, his drawings and sketches are all we had to record life. Artists had the power to manipulate our understanding.

This unusual approach to art gave members an enlightened look on many aspects of what art, through the ages, has given to our world.

ncas thank Alan very much for giving up his time to talk to us about what we know is one of his favourite subjects.

Right to left: ncas Patron Alan Walters and ncas Chairman Chris Mardell

A feast for the eyes: films from the Mike Toll Film Archive

Event date: 16 January 2025
Review by Danusia Wurm

Audience at the Mike Toll Film Archive screening, Blake Studio

“What a superb evening we shared last night”

The first of ncas’ 2025 events kicked off with wonderful evening held in association with Norwich 20 Group, screening films on Bernard Reynolds, Kathleen MacFarlane and Brüer Tidman from the Mike Toll Film Archive.

Mike was a practising artist and inspirational teacher who was passionate about furthering the arts in Norfolk. A member of Norwich 20 Group – where he was twice Chairman – he was instrumental in setting up the Contact Gallery in Norwich which provided exhibition space for local artists. On retirement, he threw himself with renewed energy into making films of different local artists’ practice. After his death in 2018, ncas and Norwich 20 Group transferred Mike’s VHS tapes into a more usable digital format. They now form part of the Norwich City Archives.

Although the films were mostly made in the 1980s and 1990s, they remain remarkably fresh reflecting the passion, work ethic and intellect of all three artists. Mike cleverly allowed ample space for them to tell their stories, supporting the narrative with well-researched stills and other film material.

The films were prefaced with superb vignettes of each artist by Keith Roberts former ncas Chairman.

Given the very positive audience reaction to the evening, we hope to screen other films from the Mike Toll Archive later in the year.

Watch this space for details!

Works by Bernard Reynolds

Works by Kathleen MacFarlane

Works by Brüer Tidman

ncas wishes to thank the Norwich School for their continued support and hospitality.

Animation can be everything. Jon Dunleavy and Robin Fuller

Event date: 6 November 2024
Review by Danusia Wurm

In a richly illustrated talk, artist and educator Jon Dunleavy discussed the multidisciplinary nature of animation - an artform not a genre – which uses a range of mediums and crafts in order to explore and reflect the world we live in.

Jon is an award-winning film maker and Course Leader for BA Animation and VFX courses at Norwich University of The Arts. His work spans many genres from comedy, to poetry driven films, horror, fantasy, with his latest satirical examination of AI art tools, Two Gracious Uncles Smooched to the Beat, winning a British Animation Award, 2004. The film is a philosophical debate on the legitimacy of art created by A.I. tools, as told through the medium of silliness. It discusses to what extent A.I. can produce new ideas, and if it can capture the genuine inventiveness that we celebrate in man-made artworks.

Robin Fuller is a Senior Lecturer on Animation & Visual Effects at Norwich University of the Arts. He is a multidisciplinary artist specialising in storytelling via moving image, interactive and immersive media.

Robin comes from a background of industry practice, working as a freelance director and animator in the animation and VFX industry before moving into immersive technology as a creative director. Robin is also an advocate of maintaining wellbeing alongside creativity and regularly leads meditation workshops to help others facilitate their own practice.

Left to Right: Jon Dunleavy, Robin Fuller and Chris Mardell (ncas Chair)

Friends and Family. Richard Calvocoressi in conversation with Carl Rowe

Event date: 16 October 2024
Review by Carl Rowe

Richard Calvorcoressi in conversation with Carl Rowe. Background photo by Richard Deakin

The painter Lucian Freud would have been 100 years old in 2022. This occasion was marked by a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London, as well as numerous smaller events exploring aspects of Freud’s work.

Gagosian gallery adopted a different approach, presenting key works of Freud alongside those of fellow painters Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and Michael Andrews. Richard Calvocoressi, Senior Curator at Gagosian was inspired by an iconic, albeit technically flawed photograph of the four artists taken by the photographer John Deakin at Wheeler’s Restaurant, Soho, London in 1963.

Calvocoressi chose Friends and Relations as the title for this exhibition, a survey of all four painters explored through their friendships, influences, family, lovers, and London, unified by their shared devotion to painting the human form.

Richard Calvocoressi CBE appears to come from a different era, a time of exquisite manners and elegant intellect. His opening words at the talk Friends and Relations provided a brief overview of his notable contributions to museum and gallery work.

His curatorial work at Gagosian is concerned with historical contexts, but in hisopening dialogue he identified key evolutionary moments in contemporary art, relating the London artworld of the 20th Century with its contemporary direction populated by influential characters, markets and dissemination. He understands the seismology of the art business. And this is important, because his insight into the work of Freud, Auerbach, Bacon and Andrews also extends beyond the artefacts and into relationships, the artworld, and the fabric of urban society.

Through Friends and Relations, Calvocoressi has arranged notable artworks by truly great artists, in such a way as to tell a broader, richer, more intersectional story. A narrative that the works might hint at individually, but not entirely reveal in isolation.

Gagosian has produced a short film, which provides the viewer with a walk through the exhibition. This was projected onto the screen for everyone to see, and Richard paused at points to talk about the works. Through his deceptively conversational narration, he revealed facts, connections, cause and effect. The blurred web of attraction and rejection spun around these four artists was made clearer by him.

Calvocoressi has considered the grainy, blurred photograph that Deakin took at Wheeler’s in 1963, and has sharpened it, coloured it and reprinted it. We all benefitted from this reprint by virtue of his talk.

ncas would like to thank Richard and Carl for a wonderfully informative and entertaining evening.

Talk by glass sculptor David Reekie

Event date: 19 September 2024
Review by Danusia Wurm

The Wall Between Us, David Reekie

“Life becomes a spectacle and, if you happen to be an artist, you record the passing show”

— Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn.

David Reekie has always relished recording “the passing show”.

Born and raised in the post WW2 East End of London, Reekie was naturally curious and drawn to art from an early age. He attended Stourbridge College of Art in the late 60s and lectured for 10 years at North Staffordshire Polytechnic before moving to Norfolk where he set up his studio in 1986.

Initially, his artistic work solely centered on glass casting and construction and became very architectural. He first introduced the human figure to his work to give a sense of scale; this later developed into providing a narrative to the pieces. And what a narrative!

A central theme of Reekie’s work is the threat that modern life poses to our individuality and to the natural world. “We live in a world that grows more complex and difficult to comprehend. It has tensions and temptations that pull us in different directions. This creates characters and situations that provide a constant source of material from which I take my ideas”.

The resulting work, brilliantly conveying all aspects of the human condition, is quirky, funny and thought provoking as Reekie works in the tradition of political caricature and satire typified by William Hogarth and Honore Daumier.  Other sources of inspiration include James Gillray, cartoonist for The Independent, David Brown, and the American political cartoonist, Matt Wuerker. Reekie also uses images from newspaper photos. “Why not?  They do the work for you”.

Reekie’s work is technically complex combining glass, wood and clay. Initial detailed drawings are key and inform all his work. “They are the beginning where I have time to think”. His method involves mould and lost wax casting. He has also developed the use of ceramic enamel colours that he uses on glass and mould surface to create effects that mirror his drawings.

As a commentator on the human condition, Reekie’s work unashamedly mines rich seams in the UK and wider world. Take an early example, the Thatcher years, particularly the miners’ strike of 1984 and the consequent societal disruption; also the Blair-Bush relationship. More recently Reekie has turned to the difficult themes of migration, as seen in his works Strangers and Displaced; and climate change The Bigger Picture.

His work The Wall Between Us was on display at the talk.

ncas would like to thank David for his thoughtful and richly illustrated talk and the Norwich School for hosting this event in their Blake Studio.

Different People, David Reekie

Review by ncas trustee Danusia Wurm

Robert Fox and Leslie Davenport: Post War: People and Places Exhibition

Event date: 28 August to 7 September 2024
Review by Danusia Wurm

Madonna and Child, Robert Fox

“A triumph. Wonderfully evocative”

— Exhibition visitor

Described by one visitor as a “visual time capsule” of the post WW2 austerity Britain, this latest ncas exhibition celebrated two outstanding artists. Leslie Davenport and Robert Fox were friends and briefly colleagues at Norwich School of Art, each produced a stunning body of work that carefully observed and documented the everyday, the people and the rapidly changing urban landscape.

“Stunning observational work and drawings very evocative of the era”

— Exhibiton visitor

With previously unseen works on loan from the private collections of Linda McFarlane and the Fox family and Helen Davenport and the Davenport family, the show proved a unique opportunity to observe and marvel at the artists' sharply observed and unflinching canvases. 

Take the bleakness of Fox's Blindman and Children's Bicycles or the jarring, rapidly sketched Child Brides Skipping. Meantime, Davenport's urban landscapes such as Extractor, Jarrolds and Gas Works, Bishop Bridge Road solidly dominated their wall space, seemingly immutable but also vulnerable to inevitable re-development and the elements. 

It was truly a slice of social realism on show, which resonated with so many visitors. 

“We feel so refreshed and uplifted from seeing this magnificent exhibition”

— Exhibition visitor

Beautifully curated by Keith Roberts and Selwyn Taylor, the vaulted ceilings and natural stone of the Crypt Gallery provided a perfect, neutral, back-drop to the work on show. As one visitor put it succinctly, it was "a perfect partnership of colours, intensity, people and places." 

The show also included contemporaneous photographs of Norwich from the George Plunkett Archive which added another visual dimension and reference point. An excellent accompanying catalogue Post-War: People and Place produced by Roberts and Taylor is available here.

Trowse Riverside, Leslie Davenport

ncas are enormously grateful to the Norwich School for their help in staging the exhibition and to all the Volunteers who stewarded at the event which attracted just under 800 visitors.

Review by ncas trustee Danusia Wurm

Revealing Nature: The art of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines

Event date: 13 August 2024
Review by Danusia Wurm

Cafe de la Rotonde, Cedric Morris

“As an artist, you must cultivate a relationship with your work so that it becomes your best friend. You must be able to go to it however you’re feeling - happy, tired, bored, frustrated, randy, whatever - and have a conversation with it”

— Cedric Morris

The recently refurbished Gainsborough's House in Sudbury provided the stunning venue for Revealing Nature, an exhibition that charts the artistic careers of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines who famously first met on Armistice night in 1918 and were partners in love and art for sixty years thereafter.

ncas members were welcomed by Gainsborough's House Director, Calvin Winner, who explained its history and more recent evolution, principally the new extension and galleries designed by architects ZMMA, as well as plans for the future.

The group was then taken on an illuminating and insightful tour of the show by its curator Dr Patricia Hardy. With over eighty loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery and private  collectors, the exhibition includes Morris’ early portraits and still lives, flower paintings and landscapes and Lett-Haines’ lesser known works, principally surrealist paintings which were completely new to ncas members. 

Uniquely, the works remained part of Cedric Morris's private collection until his death in 1982. Maggi Hambling, a student and friend of Cedric Morris, has been instrumental in introducing the collection to Gainsborough's House and in selecting the paintings and drawings for this exhibition.

Cedric Morris is most widely celebrated for his paintings of flowers, which are often likened to portraits on account of their capacity to capture not only an accurate likeness but also the individual character of each bloom. In addition to his floral works, the exhibition featured portraits which exhibit his keen eye for conveying mood and emotion whilst his landscapes reveal his deep affiliation with nature. 

The Journey, Arthur Lett-Haines

Considered one of Britain’s first surrealists, Arthur Lett-Haines produced a body of work that is esoteric, abstract and organic. It is also little known and ripe for rediscovery. His fascinating paintings on show evidence the influence of surrealist artists, such as Max Ernst, and demonstrate his fascination with a growing amalgamation of trends emerging in European art.

Working together, Morris and Lett-Haines went on to found the hugely influential East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in 1937 which taught a generation of artists, where the atmosphere was described as 'robust and coarse, exquisite and sensitive all at once, also faintly dangerous'.  In addition to Maggi Hambling, pupils there included Lucian Freud, Lucy Harwood, David Kentish and Joan Warburton. 

Revealing Nature continues until 3 November 2024. 

Review by ncas trustee Danusia Wurm