Love, Art, Loss: the wives of Stanley Spencer at the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, Berkshire

A very small exhibition of Spencer's portraits of his female partners, along with photographs detailing his complex relationships. Spencer's first wife was the artist Hilda Carline, with whom he had a troubled on/off relationship that ended in divorce.  In the meantime Spencer had become obsessed with the socialite and artist Patricia Preece, who became his business manager. She already lived with Dorothy Hepworth, with whom she had a lesbian relationship. Spencer nevertheless married Patricia very shortly after his divorce, but the marriage was never consummated and the story goes that Patricia and Dorothy went on the honeymoon, leaving Spencer to spend that night with his first wife.

An accompanying booklet told the story of the artist and his wives but was poorly backed up by the very limited pieces of work on display in an unsympathetic gallery. ❤❤ 

Don McCullin retrospective at Liverpool Tate

This huge exhibition (we had to go twice to cover it all) shows the work of the famous journalistic photographer from the 1960s through to the present day.  He was compelled to record conflict wherever it was happening. So the exhibition is a journey through the lives of many of us, covering all the major international events we knew of: Vietnam, Cambodia, Biafra, UK political conflict, Lebanon and many more.  It makes grim and upsetting viewing, the more so because the same tragedies and the same inhumanity continue, as if no lessons are ever learned. His latest photography -- he is now in his 80s -- is much more domestic, taken from his house in Somerset, and yet depicting sad but beautiful scenes of flooding and landscapes under stress. ❤❤❤❤❤ 

Drawn to Nature, at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester

A review of all the wonderful illustrations of this famous book by Gilbert White (1720-1793) The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.  Includes work by Eric Ravilious, Thomas Bewick and John Nash, among many others.  Particularly beautiful woodcuts by Clare Leighton (1898-1989).