Snowdon at Pallant House
It's rare to see an exhibition so perfectly matched to a venue, but In Camera, featuring Snowdon's photographs of artists taken throughout his career, wouldn't be half as good outside Chichester's Pallant House Gallery.
So many of the artists that Snowdon has photographed are linked to the very personal collections that make up Pallant House Gallery's holdings.
Snowdon started photographing artists in the late 50s, including informal portraits of the kitchen sink painter John Bratby in London, a collection taken with a 35mm Leica camera and using only available light. He continued with the epic Private View, a collection of over 400 photographs taken in 63. For this new collection, Snowdon worked fast; in three weeks in October 63, he visited Cornwall, shot half a dozen London artists in their studios, John Piper in a graveyard, Lowry in a market, Sir Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld, Kenneth Clark at home, and completed further shoots of art establishment figures. The work was published in one massive volume, weighing in at nearly two and a half kilos.
And the mid-60s artworld featured in Private View is the same one inhabited by Walter Hussey and Sir Colin St John Wilson, the two men who left their large collections to Pallant House Gallery.
This exhibition, across three intimate spaces, starts with the informal London and Private View photographs and ends with more recent pictures taken for Vogue. Think of a significant artist from the second half of the 20th century, and they're pictured here.
John Bratby is at home in postwar Blackheath, a dramatic figure looming over his sleeping child. Francis Bacon is relaxed and laughing in his studio. Hockney, Paolozzi, Blake, Riley and Tilson represent the emerging pop movement. Ivon Hitchens, John Piper, Anthony Blunt and LS Lowry are the establishment. Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink, Anthony Caro and Barbara Hepworth represent sculpture. And Anthony Gormley, Damien Hirst, the Chapman brothers, Rachel Whiteread and Grayson Perry bring the exhibition bang up to date. Around 65 artists are included altogether. The whole exhibition is elegantly hung, with new prints of the old images often improving their quality, and the whole show perfectly framed in white.
And the simplicity of the exhibition lets us compare the old school with the young punks, and when we do, we get an interesting glimpse at how the art world has changed in 50 years. While the 60s photographs are rough, raw and urgent, the pictures from the 80s and 90s are much more mannered. While Snowdon's early images made stars of artists, or brought the hidden studio world of older artists into the open, the more recent works only capture the artist as star.
The best works here give us a truly 'private view'. The Bratby shot, RB Kitaj with his family, or John Hoyland with his son, are all remarkable in their informality. Studio shots of sculptors Philip King, Elisabeth Frink and Eduardo Paolozzi, and painters Alan Davie, William Coldstream, Cecil Collins and Frank Auerbach, reveal something about their studio practice. We even see John Piper and Graham Sutherland engaged in the artist's most private moment, sketchbook in hand. The catalogue's excellent, simple commentary adds further insight.
More recent shots of Jake and Dinos Chapman, Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili and Grayson Perry offer no such insight or honesty; the photographs are as glossy, polished and managed as their subjects.
And that's why In Camera is such a significant exhibition. It tracks the massive change in the artworld in the last 50 years, and in doing so adds an extra layer of understanding to Pallant House Gallery's collections. In Camera is a perfect companion to one of the best collections of modern art in the UK.
So many of the artists that Snowdon has photographed are linked to the very personal collections that make up Pallant House Gallery's holdings.
Snowdon started photographing artists in the late 50s, including informal portraits of the kitchen sink painter John Bratby in London, a collection taken with a 35mm Leica camera and using only available light. He continued with the epic Private View, a collection of over 400 photographs taken in 63. For this new collection, Snowdon worked fast; in three weeks in October 63, he visited Cornwall, shot half a dozen London artists in their studios, John Piper in a graveyard, Lowry in a market, Sir Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld, Kenneth Clark at home, and completed further shoots of art establishment figures. The work was published in one massive volume, weighing in at nearly two and a half kilos.
And the mid-60s artworld featured in Private View is the same one inhabited by Walter Hussey and Sir Colin St John Wilson, the two men who left their large collections to Pallant House Gallery.
This exhibition, across three intimate spaces, starts with the informal London and Private View photographs and ends with more recent pictures taken for Vogue. Think of a significant artist from the second half of the 20th century, and they're pictured here.
John Bratby is at home in postwar Blackheath, a dramatic figure looming over his sleeping child. Francis Bacon is relaxed and laughing in his studio. Hockney, Paolozzi, Blake, Riley and Tilson represent the emerging pop movement. Ivon Hitchens, John Piper, Anthony Blunt and LS Lowry are the establishment. Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink, Anthony Caro and Barbara Hepworth represent sculpture. And Anthony Gormley, Damien Hirst, the Chapman brothers, Rachel Whiteread and Grayson Perry bring the exhibition bang up to date. Around 65 artists are included altogether. The whole exhibition is elegantly hung, with new prints of the old images often improving their quality, and the whole show perfectly framed in white.
And the simplicity of the exhibition lets us compare the old school with the young punks, and when we do, we get an interesting glimpse at how the art world has changed in 50 years. While the 60s photographs are rough, raw and urgent, the pictures from the 80s and 90s are much more mannered. While Snowdon's early images made stars of artists, or brought the hidden studio world of older artists into the open, the more recent works only capture the artist as star.
The best works here give us a truly 'private view'. The Bratby shot, RB Kitaj with his family, or John Hoyland with his son, are all remarkable in their informality. Studio shots of sculptors Philip King, Elisabeth Frink and Eduardo Paolozzi, and painters Alan Davie, William Coldstream, Cecil Collins and Frank Auerbach, reveal something about their studio practice. We even see John Piper and Graham Sutherland engaged in the artist's most private moment, sketchbook in hand. The catalogue's excellent, simple commentary adds further insight.
More recent shots of Jake and Dinos Chapman, Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili and Grayson Perry offer no such insight or honesty; the photographs are as glossy, polished and managed as their subjects.
And that's why In Camera is such a significant exhibition. It tracks the massive change in the artworld in the last 50 years, and in doing so adds an extra layer of understanding to Pallant House Gallery's collections. In Camera is a perfect companion to one of the best collections of modern art in the UK.