Mike Vickers' Blog

James Fox has just completed a series BBC4 on British Art in the Twentieth Century.  I have only seen the third and last.  This parallels the last part of Peter Capaldi’s programme on Scottish Portraiture (See my previous blog).  Capaldi’s thesis is that only Scotland is taking forward portraiture but James Fox shows otherwise.  In the New Jerusalem he takes us through the work of English artists painting pictures of people since the WW2.  His artists are Graham Sutherland with his crucifixion in St Mary’s Northampton,

Graham Sutherland

Francis Bacon who lost his lover in Paris, Richard Hamilton with his adventures into Pop Art, Keith Vaughan and finishing with Lucien Freud who had to paint life as it really is;  Freud died just last week.  I get the feeling that Fox sees no one taking their place but lets hope he is wrong. 

Lucien Freud

Incidentally in our recent trip to New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art there was one whole room dedicated to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.