Galleries - January 2012

some ofthe latter drawn through his 20 inch reflecting telescope, and John Russell’s beautiful Tele- scopic Study of the Moon of1796, among many other delights both ancient and modern. Have a Go Hero £350 in cash was recently snat- ched by two Romanian girls from Le Mur Vivant in London’s Pim- lico, whilst a painting was being wrapped for a client. As the “Pim- lico Prowlers” ran off down the street, gallery owner Caro Lyle- Skyrme, bravely gave chase. “I ac- tually shouted “Stop Thief!” three times as I ran,” said Caro later, “and think it is very important peo- ple do this ifin pursuit as it alerts others to join in!” Fortunately some joggers did join the chase, the thieves were apprehended and the money retrieved. Never- theless they had to wait a whole hour in the street for the police to arrive . . . RC All Ship Shape Things are afoot in the Bristol art world currently, with Innocent Fine Art re-opening later this month after a major five month refurb- ishment and R E Bucheli Fine Art Frames recently launching a handsome new space in the mid- dle oftown. Carol Innocent is particularly pleased, the work having given her a whole new room which she is planning to use as a per- manent ‘Collectors’ Gallery’ show- ing established names, Sandra Blow and Peter Blake among them, and prints by 20th Century. French artists, Picasso et al. It will mean she now also has the extra space to take on some new, youn- ger Bristol-based artists from the city’s particularly rich pool of talent. Meanwhile Rocio Bucheli, until recently based in Bath, has similar plans for the rather grand histori- cal rooms in Albion House she has just taken on and, as well as her specialist frame business, she plans 3 open exhibitions a year from a collective of artists, plus, on occasion, her own work. And while we are down west, a note that Anthony Hepworth is moving back to Bath, the lease on his Kensington space having now come to an end. The Hovering It’s good to see that it’s not always a London-based artist that wins one ofthe big art prizes – the main £10,000 Towry Award at the National Open Art Competition in Chichester has just gone to the Cornish-based painter David Whit- taker with his powerful painting The Hovering. A nice moment, too, for the Millennium Gallery who have been showing him for several years now. ANTENNAE 8. GALLERIES JANUARY 12 Hard Times? Though the economic news might be alarming and disquieting droit de suite changes are just coming into force (see Sarah Drury’s arti- cle on p36) it’s not immediately obvious from the more than heal- thy-looking exhibitors’ lists for the first two London art fairs of 2012, the London Art Fair (18 to 22 January) and the Watercolours + Works on Paper Fair 2012 (2 to 5 February). The former has its usu- al complement of c.100 galleries in the main halls while the 32 in the Art Projects section – with its younger, experimental bias poss- ibly more vulnerable to economic vagaries – appears to have gained five or so from last year. With the Photo50 section also still very much in evidence, it is, in short, business as usual here. Meanwhile the Watercolours + Works on Paper Fair has settled comfortably into its somehow un- likely Science Museum venue for a third year running. With a full house of 45+ galleries, the won- derfully eclectic range of this fair – 16th C. to the present day and ab- solutely anything on paper from Old Master drawings to contem- porary photography – always makes for some marvellous seren- dipity, while its setting always means fascinating loan exhibitions from the Museum’s own archive. This year the show is called ‘The Moon Observed’ and includes James Nasmyth’s astonishing mid-19th C. paintings on paper and pastels of the moon’s surface, From left: J ohn Russell ‘Teleoscopic Study of the Moon’ at Works on Paper. Richard Snowden ‘Cockerel’ at Pepper Gallery. Basil Beattie ‘When the First is Last and the Last is First’ at James Hyman Gallery