Lovely London

It has been a grey wet day here - not much fun for a bank holiday weekend but at least the sun shone yesterday for our day in London. I never tire of this wonderful city and its familiar sights.

 

 

Our first stop was Trafalgar Square and on to the Mall to deliver my work...

 

You've seen it before... but I'll show it again!

 

With it safely delivered we proceeded through Admiralty Arch along with several hundred runners taking part in the London 10K and we realised that three friends from our village were taking part but we didn't see them unfortunately.

 

We were on our way to Tate Modern to see the Matisse exhibition...

 

I was only familiar with this work through postcard sized reproductions. Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer exuberance of what was on show.

 

The colour, the vibrance... the scale...

It was mind blowingly beautiful

 

For the last seventeen years of his life, Matisse turned to a new approach to his work, cutting shapes from painted papers. Initially it was a way to work out arrangements of objects in a painting but eventually he used it as art form in its own right. If you think this is just cutting out bits of paper then I urge you to see this for yourself because it is stunning. And despite the wonderful scale it is also very intimate personal work. Up close you can see the pin pricks where Matisse and his assistants have repositioned the cut outs, arranging them on the walls of his studios.

 

We finished our day in London over a leisurely lunch with friends and after a day at home today, I'm back again tomorrow for the opening of the exhibition. Maybe I'll see some of you there?

 

I'm back in London again on Thursday, Friday and probably Saturday too so I'm not likely to be around the world of blogs much this week... there won't be much reading, writing, commenting or replying to your comments so forgive my absence. I'll be back soon!