A Sunny Day in London

Today may be the only day of the English summer, and we had planned to spend it in London.  After a leisurely breakfast we decided to walk down to the station so that we could at least admire the bluebells on the way. 

Buckinghamshire bluebells

Arriving in London at 11.00 a.m. our first stop was the National Portrait Gallery to see the Russia and the Arts exhibition.  This was excellent. It's on until 26 June 2016 - see it if you can. Entry is £6.00, but Art Pass holders get in at half price.

In 1856 Pavel Tretyakov began to collect Russian art. By the time he donated his collection to the city of Moscow in 1892, there were almost 2,000 works, which formed the core of the State Tretyakov Gallery. 

The works are a survey of the golden age of Russian portraiture from Realist to Impressionist.  The exhibition starts with a portrait of Tretyakov, painted by Repin in 1901, three years after his death, but the subjects of the other portraits in the exhibition are writers, artists, composers and patrons. Particular highlights for me were a painting of Vladimir Dal, with really haunting eyes by Perov (1872),  and one of Mussorgsky by Repin (1881).  At first glance I thought the latter looked like like Oliver Reed after a heavy night. It was actually painted in hospital a few days before the composer’s death from alcoholism.

Our next stop was rather less highbrow - the Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street, to see a small exhibition of artwork of covers from Target novelisations of classic Doctor Who stories. The daughter of one of the artists used to work for me (something I only found out after she had been working for me for quite a long time). We also had a look around the graphic novel exhibition downstairs.  Our Art Passes came in handy again, as we got in free.

After lunch at nearby Tas in Bloomsbury Street (I don't know why Turkish restaurants are not more popular - the food is superb), we headed to our final stop of the day, the British Museum for the Sicily: Culture and Conquest exhibition. Here I flashed my British Museum Friends card for free admission. 

This very well-presented exhibition shows how the different peoples who conquered and settled on the island: Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans added to the richness of its unique cultural identity.

Three exhibitions in a day is about as much cultural stimulation as I can handle, and it was getting quite hot in the city so we set off for home.  If I had been staying in London, it would definitely have been time for tea in a park.