The term “art critic” implies a negativity which by and large doesn’t exist in the writers who sally forth into the art world to create vivid pen portraits of the art they see and the artists they meet. Art critics tend to be art lovers. Not fighters. So it was with the late W Gordon Smith. Smith wrote about art for the likes of Visual Arts Scotland and Scotland on Sunday in an accessible and upbeat fashion from 1980 until his death in 1996. But writing was just one of the many strings Smith had to his creative bow. Author, poet, dramatist and photographer, he was also a prolific and pioneering filmmaker, who made more than 100 Scope and Spectrum arts documentaries for BBC Scotland from 1969 to 1980.
Virtual: the new reality
London Art Fair again points the way for the new year but, as John Evans reports, this time itâs different
21 January, 2021 â By John Evans
John Craxton, Head of a Young Man, c1947-1948, oil on panel, 44 x 30cm, courtesy Osborne Samuel
GALLERISTS, collectors, and all art enthusiasts should by now be enjoying the 33rd edition of London Art Fair at the Design Centre in Islington this week.
The pandemic, however, has pushed this annual opener for the art-loving community into a virtual sphere, which kicked off on Wednesday and will run through the rest of January â see www.londonartfair.co.uk
Ken Hughes obituary
Ken Hughes was head of the sculpture department at Bath Academy of Art, where he taught from 1965 to 1985
Ken Hughes was head of the sculpture department at Bath Academy of Art, where he taught from 1965 to 1985
TimHughes
Wed 30 Dec 2020 12.33 EST
Last modified on Fri 15 Jan 2021 18.21 EST
My father, Ken Hughes, who has died aged 93, was a sculptor and lecturer.
His speciality was extremely lifelike and well observed portrait heads. But he also explored other ways of making sculpture, using colour in a long series of works that were often reminiscent of scenes in plays and which, stylistically, owed much to German Expressionist painters such as Paul Klee and Max Beckmann and contemporary painters such as Frank Auerbach and Francis Bacon.