Tate Britain- Last full day in London

Monday April 2, was yet another cloudy day with a few isolated showers.  The high was 11C.  We walked to the Liverpool Street station to catch the tube to the Tate Britain.

Alain and his buddy

Good advice

We went to see All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life.   The exhibit featured a number of painters in Britain (British and not, but who lived or live in London) who strove to represent human figures, their relationships and surroundings in a very intimate way.  Some of them only ever painted from life.  Others created imagined scenes.  Whatever the approach, this group of artists moved beyond naturalistic representation, capturing the ways in which they are affected by their subjects.

The two major artists in the show were Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, but their art was shown alongside a number of their contemporaries.  The last room of the show featured a number of younger artists who were carrying on their legacy.  It was a fabulous show.  While we knew the work of Freud and Bacon, it introduced us to a number of English artists that were totally new to us.

Banner outside the Tate Britain

List of artists in the exhibit

Outside with posters of three of the paintings in the show

The first wall had a number of quotes with the artists stating their approach to painting.

The following pictures are some of the highlights.  Some of the earlier artists shown- David Bomberg, Walter Richard Sickert, Chaim Soutine and Stanley Spencer worked or exhibited in the first half of the 20th century.  They inspired the generations of painters that followed them and established important precedents in their approach to painting both in their subject matter and handling of paint.

Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) Polish Woman c. 1922

The following painting by Soutine made a strong impression on Francis Bacon's work during the mid 1950s.

Chaim Soutine Landscape at Céret c. 1920-1

David Bomberg (1890-1957) Self-Portrait 1931

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) Patricia Preece 1933

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Study for Figure VI 1956-7

F.N. Souza (1924-2002) Negro in Mourning 1957

F.N. Souza Red Sun 1960

Euan Uglow (1932-2000) Georgia 1973  There are grids and crosses on the painting, the result of his process involving every aspect of the setting.  The painting took five years to complete.

David Bomberg Evening in the City of London 1944 - Between 1944-46, Bomberg made numerous drawings of St. Paul's Cathedral, considered by many to be a symbol of British resistance among the ruins of the bombed cityscape.  This is Bomberg's only painting of this scene.

Leon Kossoff (born 1926) Demolition of the Old House, Dalston Junction, Summer 1974 

Leon Kossoff Children's Swimming Pool, Autumn Afternoon 1971

Frank Auerbach (b. 1931) Looking towards Mornington Crescent Station, Night 1972-73
The artist made a vast number of drawings of this view at night.  He produced four paintings of this subject.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) Man's Head (Self-Portrait I) 1963

Lucian Freud The Painter's Mother IV 1973

Lucian Freud Frank Auerbach 1975-6

Francis Bacon Three Figures and Portrait 1975

Francis Bacon Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud 1964

Michael Andrews (1928-1995) Colony Room I 1962

Michael Andrews Melanie and Me Swimming 1978-9

R.B. Kitaj (1932-2007) Cecil Court, London W.C.2 (The Refugees) 1983-4
This painting shows a scene in Cecil Court, a London thoroughfare famous for its second-hand bookshops.  Kitaj had befriended some of the booksellers, many whom had come to London as refugees from Nazi Germany.  The artist is shown reclining on a chair in the foreground, while figures from his family and the booksellers appear in the background.

Paula Rego (b.1935) The Family 1988 The picture was painted in the final months of her husband's life, before he died from a degenerative illness.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b. 1977) The Host Over a Barrel 2014

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Coterie of Questions 2015

We took the tube to Covent Gardens and wandered around the streets nearby.  On Neal's Yard, we found Jacob the Angel Coffee shop, which had great coffee from a roaster called Square Mile.  The story behind the name "begins at the Angel Inn, where a man from the Middle East opened the very first coffee shop in England in 1651."

Outside of Jacob the Angel 

We walked up Charing Cross Road and checked out both Waterstones and Foyles book stores.
Foyles has definitely done a redo since the last time I was there.  The bookstore has five floors of books and a very large cafe.  Fabulous selection of books-definitely could spend a lot of time there.

The cafe at Foyles on the 5th floor

We took the tube back to our flat.  After a short rest, we headed out for our last dinner in London at Andina, a fabulous Peruvian restaurant about five minutes away on Redchurch Street.  The food and service was great.  We shared a number of dishes.

With my Pisco Sour

Fabulous sea bass ceviche with avocado and sweet potato

Field Salad with corn, radicchio, fennel shavings and a great dressing

We also had a small piece of pork belly and a serving of Ocopa Chips (thick cut fries with a ocopa peanut herb and Amarillo chilli sauce).

Pumpkin and sweet potato doughnuts (non-dairy) and ice-cream for Alain

And so ends our blog for our adventure in Malta, Naples, Amalfi Coast and London.  It has been a great trip, even with a bit more inclement weather than we had counted on.  Lots of culture, food, and history.  We have learned a lot and have tips for anyone following in our footsteps.  On Tuesday April  3, we will be catching a 6:00 p.m. flight to Toronto on Air Canada.  We'll have to leave for Heathrow mid-afternoon.  We are glad you have joined us for our journey.  Hope to see many of you in Toronto soon.