art and allusion

Robert Capa Negatives Found!

A huge cache of Robert Capa's negatives from the Spanish Civil War have just been found. Read about this here: 'The Capa Cache'

I wrote about the famous Falling Soldier image (allegedly of a Republican solider at the very instant of his death) in an article in History of Photography 'Varieties of Photographic Representation' (1991) vol. 15 (203-210) based on information from the Robert Whelan biography (you can read an article by Whelan on the topic here. Perhaps the question of whether Capa staged that image is about to be answered definitively...

Maggi Hambling With a Cigarette, Oscar Wilde Without One

Someone keeps taking the metal cigarette from Maggi Hambling's monument to Oscar Wilde - there is a jaunty description of lunch with Maggi Hambling from the Financial Times here. I photographed her in her studio with her fake cigarette when I interviewed her for the Radio 4 Programme 'Rembrandt Today'. The drawings she was making of the sea were amazing. She now has her own official website with many links to images and reviews. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Seven Ways of Thinking About Art - Course at Tate Modern

I will be teaching a course on the Philosophy of Art at Tate Modern - Seven Ways of Thinking About Art - on Monday evenings 6.30- 8pm,  4th February - 17th March this year (followed by a drink in the bar from 8pm). If you are interested in attending you should book soon as these courses sell out quite quickly. I'll be posting notes from the course here. This course is a mixture of classroom discussion and looking at works of art in the gallery after the public have left.

You can get an idea of the sorts of topics covered in this course and my approach by looking at my notes from the last time I taught the course here. We won't necessarily be looking at the same works for the upcoming course.

This course is also the basis of a book I am writing with the same name...but don't hold your breath.