Free Thinking - Velasquez; John Bratby; Pan Haggerty

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2016

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

Anne McElvoy looks at changing fashions and values in the art world as she talks to Observer critic Laura Cumming about her researches into a 19th-century court case involving a Velázquez portrait. New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska joins the conversation to explain more about the trip to Spain during which the future Charles I was painted by the Spanish artist.

Curator Liz Gilmore and dealer Julian Hartnoll discuss the British painter John Bratby who was celebrated and seen as an enfant terrible of the art world in the '50s and '60s. He is believed to have painted over 1500 works and an exhibition at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings has drawn upon paintings brought in by members of the public.

Artist Gayle Chong Kwan is working on a project based upon the North Eastern food dish Pan Haggerty. She talks about the walks, videos and photographs she has been creating as part of her residency in East Durham.

Laura Cumming's book is called The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez John Bratby: Everything But The Kitchen Sink Including The Kitchen Sink runs at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings from January 30th to April 17th. The Pan Hag Project is being produced in conjunction with Forma Arts.

Producer: Ella-Mai Robey

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music
0:27.0	when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.1	Hello, tonight, paintings lost, found and faked.
0:36.1	Painters loved forgotten and rediscovered. And how fitting in a year when Christie's auction house turns 250 and exhibitions are brimming with artists, reimagined and re-evaluated, from Botticelli to Winifred Knights and Joan Erdley.
0:52.4	Tonight will be delving into the life and work of the 17th century Spanish master,
0:57.4	Diego Velasquez, and Kitchen Sink realist of 20th century Britain, John Bratby,
1:03.1	still rattling sensibilities at a new exhibition of his work from the 1950s.
1:08.5	One was concerned with painting objectively and that excited one, anything that was in the
1:15.3	world around one. And the most immediate examples of that, of the visual world around one was
1:22.2	what was on the top of the table and so one painted that.
1:33.4	John Bratby in 1973, explaining how he became a kitchen sink artist.
1:37.4	And later, the Northumbrian dish from my native northeast that's inspired a community arts project.
1:40.4	But first, a great artist meets a great mystery.
1:44.3	Who would not want to find a Velascares at a knockdown price?
1:48.5	Well, in 1845, a printer and bookseller, John Snare, thought he'd done just that at a country house auction.
1:56.2	So he bought it and set out to discover its provenance, a trail that took him from London to Edinburgh and New York, and turned him into an artistic sleuth.
2:06.3	That's produced a book of detailed artistic archaeology today from the observer's art critic Laura Cumming.
2:12.9	Fascinated by the story, she set out on a search for the truth of the tale about snare and the painting.
2:19.4	It takes us from the Royal Courts of Spain in the 17th century to the Chile High Courts of Edinburgh
2:24.6	and 19th century Broadway. It turns into a riveting double biography too, perhaps as much
	...

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