Visual & Decorative Arts Blog

London: this great city is forever pulsing with activity, a veritable haven of culture and innovation. For art-lovers, there’s a great selection of museums, galleries and exhibitions covering all sorts of tastes, from fashion and design to war memorabilia. There’s always something going on, which can be both very exciting and extremely overwhelming, so below we’ve gathered a pick of our favourite current and upcoming events. Our fantastic range of 2016 calendars is also now available, with a number of our licensed calendars produced in partnership with the cultural hotspots of the capital, including the V&A, the Tate, the RA, the Royal Opera House and many others.

With over five thousand woodblocks to his name and celebrated for his breathtaking landscapes, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) is often said to have been the last of the great art masters of his time. In Europe and the United States, Japanese woodblock prints are usually thought of as decorative pieces rather than fine art; such terms as ukiyo or Edo bakufu do not mean much to most of us Westerners. But in order to fully understand Hiroshige’s work we have to go back a few decades before his birth, to 1603 and the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. 

Warwick Goble is known for his pictures of fantastic things. Be they invading aliens or mysterious fairies, his work consistently exuded a charm that made him popular with young readers and lovers of illustrated literature.

Grant Wood (1891–1942) is known for dismissing the European influences that he felt were standing in the way of American painters developing their own artistic identity. Among his most famous pieces of work are the much-discussed American Gothic (1930), the satirical Adolescence (1933) and the borderline parodic Daughters of Revolution (1932).

Some of Monet's most famous paintings are his depictions of sights seen in the idyllic landscapes of his Garden of Giverny. His incredibly popular Water Lilies artworks, and the iconic view of the Japanese Bridge were all painted from views of his garden – adorned with poppies, dahlias and irises – where he lived out his final years.

Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday in which people gather together with friends and family to remember those who have died, including colourful parades, music and parties in cemeteries. They believe that at midnight on October 31 the gates of heaven are opened and the spirits of children who have passed away are allowed to spend 24 hours with their families. On November 1, adult spirits also come down to enjoy the festivities.

Robert Delaunay was a french artist best known for for being the co-creator (along with his wife, Sonia) of the art movement Orphism. By using bold, evocative colours and building upon the lessons of Cubism, Delaunay made striking works that helped inspire many popular modern artists. Today's blog takes a quick look at the life of this important figure in the art world.

L.S. Lowry is beloved by us for making the industrial scene his own. These works were created in his own unique way, poetic yet not sentimental, compelling, even at times disturbing, but never judgmental. In this blog we’ll take a brief look at how he began to develop his well-known style.

The Mexican painter Octavio Ocampo produces compelling, masterfully composed images that are testament to the idea that a picture’s meaning is constituted at least in part by the observer. Ocampo, who pursued a film and theatre career for some time alongside his art studies, uses the term ‘metamorphic’ to describe his art, which is also often described as surrealist. His evocative optical experiments are impressive, fascinating and somewhat disorientating. As he says: ‘Nothing is quite as it seems’. You look closer at his paintings and suddenly notice the plural realities within them, adding a sort of double-vision to the experience. Today we’ll explore some of Ocampo’s art, touching on the concerns that his paintings share with the works of the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, the philosopher Ludvig Wittgenstein and the latin poet Ovid.

Often when we think of artists, we think of their major works. But aside from the impact they may have had on the art world, how much do we really know about these important figures? Today’s blog take a quick tour of four master artists, recounting a few interesting details from their early lives that you might not have know…