Blimey where to start?
I love art.
In recent years I have been to several exhibitions in London, notably Hockney and Turner shows. In 2022 I went to the Venice biennale and whilst there visited the Peggy Guggenheim museum for the Marcel Duchamp exhibition. It was breathtaking. I am going to Venice again in autumn for the biennale and will also visit the Guggenheim. There isn’t a church or gallery in Venice that I haven’t visited for their spectacular art works.
I regularly visit Manchester art gallery and the Whitworth gallery, there’s always something new to see.
We holidayed for decades in Brittany and visited many of the places that inspired the famous artists that were based there such as Gauguin in Pont-Aven, Monet in Belle-île, Maurice Denis in Ploumanac’h, etc.. I have a study of Gauguin’s The Vision After the Sermon. It was picked up in a French brocante for a few euro. The original painting he did as a gift for the chapel in Pont D’Aven but the priest rejected. It ended up in the possession of a Scottish industrialist who bequeathed it to the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. On two occasions I have gone to see it whilst in Edinburgh for the festival only to find on one occasion it was on loan to the Tate and on the second it was not on display because it was being cleaned! One day perhaps I’ll get to see it.
A few years ago I visited my son in New York and whilst there thought I’d particularly like to see Jasper Johns American Flag painting in MoMA.
We duly got there, and after trek round for hours, the place is enormous, discovered it was not on display!
The Louvre and Musee D’Orsay have been enjoyable. D’Orsay more so because it is manageable in a day and it has several of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series which are among my favourite pieces ever.
Not quite my taste, but still interesting is the Joan Miro museum of art in Palma, Mallorca.
After a visit to Guggenheim in Venice and seeing the work of Jackson Pollock his earlier, non drip paintings fascinated me to the point of signing up for a free online art course on Post War American Abstract Expressionism run by the New York Museum of Modern Art. That inspired me to start dabbling myself and I have a few daubs of my own on my walls.
Theatre
I attend as many theatre events in Manchester as I can. I must admit unless sitting on a couchette or on the stage level I find the Royal Exchange theatre seats extremely uncomfortable. I used to go much more often but now find their choices of productions not my taste. Since it opened I have been a regular patron of the Aviva studios near the old Granada studios. The opening show, Free Your Mind, was a triumph.
Before Covid we used to regularly go to that London for plays. Not so much since but we do go to every broadcast that the National Theatre put on at local cinemas. Most notably last week the excellent production of Nye, starring Michael Sheen was on and was the best I have seen in some time.
I have been a regular visitor to the Edinburgh Fringe in recent years but will be giving it a miss this year because the amount of walking involved would be too much for my new hip and the cost of accommodation has got very silly.
Opera
I have posted on here before about my love of Opera.
I have seen several productions in London at the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera.
We have been lucky enough to travel and see opera in New York at the Met, Venice at La Fenice, Paris, Palais Garnier, Vienna state opera, Budapest at the Hungarian state opera, Verona at the arena and the Puccini festival at Torre del Largo.Later this year we are going to the Teatro Malibran in Venice for a rare opera by Malapiero.
I go to every production of the NY Met Opera and the Royal Opera that are broadcast to local cinemas.
The arts have always been very important to me and I was lucky enough to retire early enough and have enough money to indulge in them.
Update
My dear wife has just given me a present of Francis Bacon A Self Portrait in Words, the latest book of the collected letters and notes of the late great painter.
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