Painted Insights

I am not really ‘into’ abstract art. It is a running joke between us that I like pictures of things I can recognise. I love ‘Backache Woman’ at Cornerstones, but Bob likes ‘That One With The Stripes’ Most of my favourite artists are long dead!

When I removed the bookshelves from the Dining Room prior to our recent redecoration, I found this book - ‘Painted Insights’

It is exactly nine years since we went up as a family in half-term to the Thackeray Gallery in Bond Street, to see an exhibition of artworks by Victoria Crowe. Steph was studying her as part of her A-level Art course and was keen to study the artist’s works properly. Steph bought the accompanying book.

Victoria Crowe studied at Kingston School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London, before joining Edinburgh College of Art in 1968, where she taught until 1998.

One of Scotland’s leading painters, she has established herself as a painter whose work is instantly recognisable. While the full range of her painting covers landscape, still lifes, portraits, self-portraits and interiors, much of her work defies such precise categorisation.

Described as ‘one of the most vital and original figurative painters currently at work in Scotland’, her work is represented in many public and private collections. She lives and works in the Scottish Borders and Venice.

I am not sure I have ever really looked at the book since – but it is full of some superb pictures.

We have decided that we don’t want to put anything back on the newly painted walls [apart from Great Grandmama’s clock] but I think that if I did put something there, maybe I would quite like one of VC’s sunny golden pieces – full of rich coppers and bronzes

[‘Attributes – Lilies and Acanthus’]

[‘Fortuny Protea’]

But I cannot seem to find a source of prints [or even postcards] – and I certainly can’t afford an original! She is a very talented lady. [Her full name is Victoria Elizabeth Crowe – she was born on V E Day in 1945!]