exhibitions

Into central London - first to see Cathy Opie's show at the NPG, which was excellent in and of itself - and of course good to find the face of a good and dear friend there (hi, Connie!) even if she is wearing a moustache (which reminded me forcibly of being in a cab going through the streets on Bandung many years ago, and suddenly being surrounded by men blowing whistles and wearing and selling fake moustaches).

Good though the show was, in some ways I appreciated even more how the gallery had hung a whole range of Cathy's works so that they are in dialogue with other older portraits - I especially loved Guillermo & Joaquin.

Then had a good look at some hands: Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Henry Fawcett, collaborating on a letter to a newspaper (he was blind); 

and in another Ford Madox Brown, these are the hands of John Osborne Riches, commercial manager of the Ocean Steam Coal Collieries in South Wales (there's a great deal to be said about FMB's portraits);

and I'd never previously notice how Queen Victoria's bracelet - showing Albert - in Barker's The Secret of England's Greatness is looking out to the world and not back up at her.

Lunch in the restaurant - amazing view -

and then to Turner and Constable at the Tate: Turner's rain-spattered sketchbook;

Hannibal crossing the Alps - the leader diminished to a tiny, tiny form atop an elephant in the far distance;

and the griminess of Dudley.  It was terrific, and telling, seeing the two hung side by side, and in dialogue with one another (admittedly my sense was made stronger by having just read Nicola Moorby's Turner and Constable: Art, Life, Landscape).  But - be warned - this was the most packed Tate exhibition I've been to in years.

Then for me, the ritualistic celebration of a sunset on Putney Bridge on the way home.