Pallant House Gallery. Barnett Freedman: Designs for Modern Britain. Review by Barbara Lewis. Painter and teacher Paul Nash referred to the group of artists he taught in the early 1920s as “an outbreak of talent”.
Barbara Lewis
Towner, Eastbourne. Alan Davie and David Hockney: Early Works – plus other exhibitions. Review by Barbara Lewis.
By Barbara Lewis • art, drawing, exhibitions, painting, photography, sculpture, year 2020 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, drawing, exhibitions, painting
Ghost Light, National Theatre of Scotland film. A theatre never goes completely dark, even in lockdown: a single light bulb, known as a ghost light, carries on glowing like a sanctuary lamp.
By Barbara Lewis • film, performance, plays, theatre, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, film, performance, plays, theatre
A paradox at the heart of Beckett is that he uses art to explore the meaninglessness of human lives, when many would say the prime purpose of art is to find meaning.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, playwrights, theatre
An unexpected joy of lockdown is seeing world-class performers in their natural habitats. Habitat is the apposite word for Simon Keenlyside, who read zoology at Cambridge before focusing on his operatic career and who describes a love of nature as “the marrow” of his existence. He looks to music for its validation.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance
For Wasfi Kani, the unstoppable founder of Grange Park Opera, even a pandemic is only a temporary setback. As soon as she had accepted this summer’s country house opera season at The Theatre in the Woods was lost, she set about mobilising the “pandemicists” and amassing funding for a Found season.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance
Bernstein’s 45-minute, one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti is his only oeuvre for which he wrote both words and music and he made the language plain to ensure realism.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, theatre, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, theatre
U.S. folk musician Jay Ungar composed his Ashokan Farewell in 1982 shortly after violin and dance camps he had been running in Ashokan, New York state, ended for the season.
By Barbara Lewis • music, opera, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, performance
In more ordinary times, Simon Procter is a British fashion photographer, who has worked with Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano.
By Barbara Lewis • design, fashion, history, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, design, fashion, history
Audio books are on the rise and social media are creating their own grammar for the youthful audiences I sense are the prime target for R J Askew’s In The Room with Three Doors, released on Amazon Audible in March.
By Barbara Lewis • authors, books, year 2020 • Tags: authors, Barbara Lewis, books
Money and heroic self-sacrifice have been considered throughout history the rational motivations for risking life. In pandemic lockdown, we’re more aware of that than ever as governments weigh economic damage and national health, while workers battling on the frontline make the ultimate sacrifice.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre
Hastings Contemporary. Quentin Blake: We Live in Worrying Times. Victor Pasmore: Line and Space. Review by Barbara Lewis. The short history of Hastings Contemporary art gallery has so far been troubled. Before it was built, it divided opinion.
By Barbara Lewis • art, exhibitions, painting, year 2020 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, painting