This exhibition aims to show three different approaches to representing nature through painting.

It opens with pre-Raphaelite paintings, showing their highly detailed, almost photo-realistic approach to capturing the world. We move through rustic naturalistic paintings, which are still fairly realistic in style but concentrate more on character and atmosphere than fine detail. And we close with paintings by British Impressionists, who forwent the realistic to concentrate almost entirely on the wider experience of the places featured.

To give you an idea of my level of ignorance, before I went to this exhibition, I couldn’t have told you anything about the Pre-Raphaelite ideals or their approach to representing the world. I therefore felt educated by this exhibition: it was very well-curated, combining clear text with a plethora of well-chosen paintings which underlined each of the points the text made.

As you’d expect, some paintings struck me and others didn’t. I usually enjoy more abstract works, and was particularly taken with Samuel John Peploe’s On the Brittany Coast and Moses Adams’s Harbour Scene at Night, Runswick.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition.

‘Essence of Nature’ continues at The Laing until 14 October.

When I decided to post every day in 2023, I didn’t expect to be on my third Egypt-themed post by March. Yet, last year’s centenary of the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb has sparked a renewed fascination in all things ancient Egypt, and so after Hieroglyphs and a coffin, I’ve been to see some art.

This exhibition by the Sainsbury Centre explores artistic responses to ancient Egypt, including all sorts of objects from paintings to pottery, and dresses to neon lights.

The first pair of objects in the exhibition make a clear statement of intent for the exhibition as a whole. Joshua Reynolds’s 1759 oil painting, Kitty fisher as Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl (to demonstrate her wealth) shows Cleopatra as we hear about her in Western myth: an extravagant, white seductress. Using the same medium in 1992, Chris Offil paints Cleopatra as a black African queen, shorn of the imposed Western myth.

This exhibition taught me how much of what we imagine to be ‘ancient Egyptian’ is anything but: much of it is actually reflective of other cultures. Before this exhibition, I didn’t know how much of ‘Egyptian’ style was actually Roman, the Romans having conquered Egypt in 30BC and Roman objects having been misattributed to ancient Egypt. Wedgwood, who pioneered ‘Egyptian’ designs in pottery, was actually (unknowingly) working from Roman artefacts–and never actually visited Egypt himself.

Before I visited this exhibition, I think I vaguely knew that The Times had an exclusive deal with Howard Carter for the photographs of his excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb. It’s the sort of thing newspapers like to celebrate. But I hadn’t previously understood that this exclusivity applied even within Egypt, depriving Egyptians of coverage of one of the most significant archeological findings in their country’s history… hardly something to be proud of in retrospect.

This exhibition features several watercolour paintings by Howard Carter, recording decorations that he uncovered during excavations, necessary in his early career as photography wasn’t an option. I had no idea that he was a talented artist, and I’d never really considered the necessity for archeologists to be able to paint and draw.

The exhibition closed with David Hockney’s 1961 Egyptian Head Disappearing Into Descending Clouds. This was an inspired choice. I wandered through the doors and tried to ponder exactly how I’d think of ancient Egypt in the future, given that all of my existing pre-conceptions had been blown away.

This was an exhibition that taught me things, corrected my misconceptions, and made me think: more than either of the other Egyptian things I’ve seen this year. I thought it was excellent.

Visions of Ancient Egypt continues at The Laing until 29 April.

A quick note about the photos in this post. The one at the bottom is a picture I’ve ‘borrowed’ from the David Hockney Foundation. The one at the top is a photo I took during the exhibition, before I realised that photography was banned… oops. I’m ummed and ahhed about whether I should include it given that I shouldn’t have taken it, but decided that it was such a great piece of curation that it deserved celebrating. Sorry, if you think I shouldn’t have done that.

Let me say up front: I’m not a fan of a pasty. You can keep your flaky pastry. But I do like a Greggs hot baguette, or a coffee, or a cake or two.

Greggs is based here in Newcastle, and I walk past the original Gosforth High Street shop most days. One of the interesting aspects about living in Greggsland has been watching their gradual transformation from a bakery to a takeaway-cum-coffee-shop.

Greggs has long had a handful of ‘Greggs Café’ branches: a large seating area with a pretty standard Greggs counter. These exist mostly, or perhaps even exclusively, in big shopping centres.

If I remember rightly, their first recent major push into a coffee shop model was the launch of ‘Greggs Moment’. This was a short-lived North East chain of coffee shops similar to a high street Costa or Caffé Nero, which also carried a range of Greggs food. These didn’t work. I don’t have any great insight into why, but I suspect the business model was flawed in that the sales volume wasn’t high enough to make a decent profit at the Greggs pricing level. Coffee shop customers tend to hang around.

The next push was into a chain of Greggs branches that were given a bit of an upmarket makeover and had seating installed, branded as ‘Greggs Bakery’. These seemed to work pretty well, combining the high-throughput of the bakery counter with the option for people to buy and eat hot stuff on the premises. A version of this—more extensive hot food plus some seats, minus the upmarket makeover—has now been rolled out to a large proportion of Greggs shops.

‘tasty by Greggs’ seems to be a new approach to creating a coffee shop style business. They are located within Primark stores, and I popped down to the third branch, which has just opened in Newcastle. This branch replaced and extended a former Costa concession within Primark, and the clothing shop has placed a range of Greggs-branded apparel for sale right by the café.

The branch I saw—which I’m assuming was representative—was filled with ‘Instagrammable’ features, like the large neon bridge pictured above, a themed phone box, a branded swing, and seating booths designed to look like giant doughnuts. Beyond the decor, though, they seem to be a standard Greggs outlet with much more seating (114 seats at the Newcastle one). They heavily advertise that ‘take out’ is available, but I can’t imagine this being a roaring trade: nobody is going to trek up to the second floor of a Primark for a Greggs takeaway when the shop is within spitting distance of three ordinary ground-level Greggs branches.

It was very busy, and I didn’t stick around for food or drink, though was disappointed to note that they use disposable coffee cups, even for those dining in. Emmanuel Macron would not approve, though it may be the least of his worries.

Logically, this would seem destined for the same outcome as Greggs Moment given the lack of passing traffic… except for the fact that I don’t think these branches are designed for cash generation. They seem like they are actually there as brand-building tools, generating positive associations with the brand and building cachet through people sharing social media posts.

This seems to play into the Greggs strategy at the moment, which seems to be all about building the brand. It seems to be working for them… but it does feel a bit time-limited to me. Fashions change, and it’s hard to see a bakery riding that wave for long.

But what do I know? I’m only in it for the okay coffee and the alright southern fried chicken baguette.

I’m not sure what the opposite of ‘a hoarder’ is, but I might be an example. I’m wired like William Morris: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

When Wendy and I catch snatches of antique programmes on television, I frequently lament that I would have no hesitation in disposing of whatever’s on display. I long for the day that someone takes an item to The Repair Shop only to be told that it’s a waste of space, but that the parts will be great for recycling. When I was built, the circuits which promote sentimentality for objects were left out.

I wasn’t drawn at all to the objects in Jools and Paul Donnelly’s small exhibition of 1960s mod culture, It’s my life… and I’ll do what I want. I admire their passion as collectors, but there isn’t a thing in this exhibition that I’d keep. Perhaps luckily for the Donnellys, if any of this turned up in my house, it’d be down at the charity shop in the blink of an eye.

I also didn’t learn anything from the exhibition: this was intended as a celebration and reminiscence, so there was no interpretive text. I couldn’t reminisce about a time that precedes my lifetime by decades.

Yet, it was clear that others loved this tiny exhibition—including plenty of people too young to remember the period. I’m the odd one out here.

And, perhaps perversely, that made me enjoy my visit. It’s always refreshing to be reminded that life takes all sorts of different people, and that one person’s junk is another’s treasure. This was not for me, but the world is a better place for containing multitudes, not just exhibitions of things that I like.

More power to the Donnellys’ elbows.

It’s my life… and I’ll do what I want continues until the end of this week, tucked away on the top floor of Newcastle City Library.

The late photographer Tish Murtha has a strong place in the firmament of the North East. She is best known for her documentary photography from the 1970s and 1980s, which brought the reality of life in the impoverished and marginalised urban communities of the North East to wider attention. Her photographs often combine gritty reality with a touch of humorous intrigue. They drew attention to social disadvantage while also celebrating the tenacity and grit of those experiencing it.

She was also known locally as the person who did the first professional headshots of Dec, of Ant and Dec fame.

Newcastle City Council recently decided to name a new social housing development as ‘Tish Murtha House’, and is holding three exhibitions of her work in celebration. ‘Demon Snapper’ is—perhaps bravely—the first of these. It leans into Murtha’s reputation for controversy early in her career, the title taken from an epithet given at the time by a local newspaper.

The controversy stemmed from Murtha’s 1970s work documenting ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’—groups of children dressed up in military uniforms and parading through the streets playing marching anthems on kazoos and glockenspiels, as a sort of weird tribute to colliery brass bands.

Murtha thought these groups, and in particular their militaristic associations, were harmful. As she said at the time,

a child must put aside all normal behaviour, and become the plaything of the failed soldier, the ex-armed forces members and their ilk; any spark of individuality is crushed by the military training imposed, until the child’s actions resemble those of a mechanical tin soldier, acting out the confused fantasies of an older generation.

Murtha’s photographic contribution to the debate was to create an exhibition juxtaposing her pictures of the uniformed bands with other shots of backstreet kids rejected from the bands imitating them, like the one below.

From a modern perspective, it’s hard to argue with Murtha’s position, but it caused enormous controversy at the time.

I enjoyed this small exhibition partly because Murtha’s photography is eye-catching and intriguing, but also because I respect the fact that the Council is willing to lean into the controversy when celebrating Murtha’s success.

In the modern world, we so often hear about ’cancel culture’ that we can get the impression that even mild controversy is a barrier to long-term success. There is something brave and yet reassuring about the Council celebrating someone’s success and also celebrating their controversy, rather than shying away from it.

Tish Murtha: The Demon Snapper theoretically closed on Friday, but it was still hanging on the second floor of Newcastle City Library when I visited yesterday, so perhaps there’s still a chance to see it (if you’re quick).

The second exhibition in the series (‘From the Inside’) is apparently open in Cruddas Park library now.

The third (‘Camera in Hand’) will be a permanent exhibition inside Tish Murtha House itself, open only to residents. Bravo.

Jim Moir (‘aka Vic Reeves’ as the catalogue has it) isn’t best-known for his painting, despite clearly possessing a lot of talent. I popped along to The Biscuit Factory to see his exhibition ‘Hot Buttered Mattress.’

It wasn’t really up my street. Moir is a brilliant representational painter, and also has an interest in ornithology. A lot of this exhibition is paintings of birds, mostly in very literal form, like the Bird Colour Wheel above. I’m not all that interested in birds.

Some of his work is a bit more abstract, like this Mandarin Duck over a Football Pitch, but it didn’t strike me as having anything particularly interesting to say, and it didn’t draw me in.

There are some more comic pieces—see Totally Topless Open Plan Office Environment 1987—but these didn’t do much for me either, seeming rather one-note.

My favourite of his works is the one at the top of this post, Curlews Over Lindisfarne, though I think I’d prefer it without the curlews. With them, it seems literal and representative—without them, I’m left to fill in the gaps much more.

There was a passage in Adam Gopnik’s latest book which was resonated with me:

In our age, the difference between entertainment and art is that in entertainment we expect to do all the work for the audience, while in art we expect the audience to do all the work for us.

I suppose I felt that Moir did too much of the work for me… though this is only my preference. I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of producing anything even remotely as good as anything in this exhibition, given my profound lack of artistic ability.

However, there was much more by other artists within The Biscuit Factory’s walls which I loved, so allow me to show you four pieces that I think deserve attention.

Angelo Murphy’s New Teapot with Flowers is representative still life, but blooming heck, look at how good it is—it’s like a modern Heda. This might be a type of art that’s not usually up my street, but this is genius.

John Brenton’s The Colours of Dusk is a stunning contribution to his collection of coastal artworks that immediately drew me in. It is rich and deep and beguiling.

All of Laura Pedley’s pieces were fantastic, but I pondered Setting Out Again the longest. It seems to me that it represents profound hope and profound despair, capturing both brilliantly and simultaneously. I love it.

Jim Moir’s Hot Buttered Mattress continues at The Biscuit Factory until 2 April.

Same time, same walk, two days later… and it’s no less than seventeen degrees warmer. Spring is mad.