News & Events
Please respect copyright notice
Copyright Ethics The ethical issues surrounding the nature of intellectual property, the public policy debate over fair use of copyrighted materials in original work is again under the spotlight with the SA Copyright Amendment Bill where in the legislation’s...
The Great Wave and Red Fuji
Meet Katsushika Hokusai, a heavyweight in Japanese art whose prints from the 19th century are still rocking the scene today. You might know him for his killer pieces like The Great Wave and Red Fuji, which basically put landscape woodblock prints on the map during...
A brilliant artist and women’s suffragist, Bertha Wegmann
Bertha Wegmann, a gifted artist and advocate for women's suffrage, faced a peculiar journey in the art world. She yearned for artistic freedom painting landscapes and wildflowers, symbolic of exploring genuine female experiences, particularly her fondness for...
Keeping it in the family
The hunting party comes back to the village nestled in the lowlands, tired dogs trailing behind them. A lone fox is impaled on one of the spears carried by the men. On the left, there's activity as they prepare to roast a pig over an open fire. Charming elements, like...
He had a beautiful way of painting
Back when they were all students at Collège Bourbon, Paul Cezanne, Louis Marguery, and Jean-Baptiste Baille became the best of friends, and they gave themselves the playful name "Les Inséparables" (The Inseparables). During their school days, Cezanne even stood up for...
Masters of Abstract Art – Kandinsky
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a significant transformation occurred in the world of painting, primarily in France. This shift was driven by the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the liberalization of societal norms during the modern...
Did the Brits embrace impressionism?
Impressionism, often associated solely with France, had a significant impact in the UK as well. While the typical perception of Impressionist art involves French scenes of 19th-century life, painted outdoors with rapid, fragmented brushstrokes capturing the ephemeral...
Painting is agony
‘I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.’ ‘Painting is agony,’ Howard Hodgkin said on several occasions. He was known to pour himself a cocktail after completing each picture! The sense is of an artist who grappled constantly with his past, with the...
Doing brilliantly at Global Canvas 23
No less than three of my students reached the Global Canvas 23 finalist stage! This is huge They reached the finals amongst 4,338 children participating from 57 countries around the world. A total of 705 individual entries and 111 group entries were received spanning...
Were the artists after impressionism really that radical?
Europe experienced a time of culural upheaval between 1886 and the start of the First World War in 1914. It was a period in which many European artists — most famously, Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh — broke with established tradition, rejecting direct transcription...
Piet Mondrian a pioneering modernist?
An abstract artist whose work was rooted in the language of landscape, Mondrian pared back his canvases to convey only essential forms — a process which, he said, was ‘not the creation of another reality, but the true vision of reality’Mondrian’s first job after...
Here’s to glorious Venice
This Italian city's distinct architecture with its water canals has captivated artist for centuries.The intricate network of canals ensures that water is a constant presence throughout the city. Magnifying its atmosphere, light can be seen shining between buildings or...
Loose yourself in the mindscapes of MC Escher
Recognition came late in life for MC Escher. Only in the 1960s, did he become a countercultural icon, feted by the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Mick Jagger. Escher had an intuitive understanding of mathematics, which proved crucial to his success as an artist. Beyond...
Warhol’s Marilyn
On 9 May, Christie’s 20th/21st Century sale week in New York concluded with auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen, Christie’s Global President, hammering down Andy Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for a record $195,040,000, making it the most expensive 20th-century artwork ever...
Consider how you interpret colour
Georges Seurat (1859–1891), Poseuses (1886-8)Poseuse debout, de face (1886)All painting is a form of optical illusion, but pointillism, the technique Seurat pioneered in the 1880s, aims to deconstruct the act of seeing itself. He was keenly interested in how the eye...
Michelangelo’s first nude – a drawing rediscovered
A nude man surrounded by two figures comes in pen and two shades of brown ink. His shoulders hunched, his arms crossed. The stance that of the shivering man waiting to be baptised by Saint Peter in the fresco The Baptism of the Neophytes in the Brancacci Chapel in...
Franz Marc
Roter Stier, 1912 Franz Marc. His career was short. Sadly ended by the Great War. He was at the centre of the Expressionist group of artists known as Der Blaue Reiter. On the 20th anniversary of Franz Marc’s death, his friend and co-conspirator Wassily Kandinsky...
Does art transport us? Where to?
An old Chinese legend tells of the painter Wu Daozi (680-c760), who learned to paint so vividly that he was finally able to step inside his work and vanish into the landscape. Magical though it sounds, this legend iterates the common intuition that artworks are more...
Playful kitten
We are using water colours and ink to create this playful kitten. Have fun!
Revealing Leonardo da Vinci’s secrets
New research into one of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous works has revealed fresh information about an abandoned composition hidden under the painting. Experts have found initial designs for the angel and infant Christ beneath the surface of the Virgin of the Rocks....
A drawing sells for record £8.8m at auction
A drawing of a bear's head by Leonardo da Vinci sold for a record £8.8m ($12.1m) at a London auction. Measuring just 7x7cm, Head of a Bear is more than 500 years old. The sale has surpassed the previous record for a Leonardo drawing, set by the Horse and Rider, which...
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Playful Kitten
A Girl in Acrylic
Please don't eat the daisies
A Girl (part three)
A Girl (part two)
A Girl (part one)
Painting the space around
Rosehip
Sleeping beagles
Roses in red ink
Colourful mugs
Dressing up
Drawing from the right side of the brain
Umbrella
Landscaping in soft pastel