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David Cottingham Latest News and Blog
The Eyes Have It : My Week in View
I love to photograph and draw the eyes. The power of eye contact is in our DNA, they are truly the gateway to the soul. When you first learn to draw portraits you are always taught not to begin with the eyes, for good reason, they have a direct power which should not...
The Sun is God : My Week in View
“the Sun is God” are said to be the moving last words uttered by Joseph Mallord William Turner, in my opinion the greatest painter these islands have ever produced. It was his birthday this week, which amazingly he shares with Shakespeare and St Georges Day. Quite a...
1914-2014 : A Century in View
We are currently surrounded by a stream of media memories of the outbreak of the first World War. My own father, born in 1901, was just too young to serve in that war but he was to serve with honour in the Desert Campaign of the next. Through him and his generation's...
The Hands of Time : My Week in View
Art is never still, always moving. I often work on a piece over several weeks, changing and overpainting. The work evolves until it speaks directly. Progress is an uncertain thing, evolution is a better word. Art of course has evolved, every age has its contemporary,...
Shine Here to Us : My Week in View
In a week of troubled and darker skies I have finished painting a sunrise. The sun is our constant source of light and life. It never fails us and inspires awe in its power and grandeur. John Donne wrote wonderfully about our Suns eternal source in his poem "The Sun...
Matisse the Master : My Week in View
For as long as I can remember Matisse has been, with Picasso, the defining inspiration for creative modern artists. He hovers above us always out of reach as both painter and sculptor of genius. One of my personal claims to fame was that I was alive before he died in...
Whistler in the Darkness : My Week in View
I am member of the Chelsea Arts Club, a wonderful institution founded in 1891 by the painter James McNeill Whistler. He is, I think, still an underrated artists who influenced many and fought the battle for modernism, nearly ruining himself in the process. His famous...
Bowie to Rodin, Mythologies : My Week in View
Bowie: Art’s survivors are a special breed, not just the classics but those artists who continue to be relevant throughout their lifetime and beyond. This week I was again working on lyrics for a song with composer Thol Mason on the theme of Icarus and myth of human...
Abstract : My Week in View
Everything comes around they say and art movements like fashion can also have a cyclical nature. One day the zeitgeist is just ready to understand or revisit ideas. Abstract painting, once the centre of the storm in the post-war art world is making something of a...
Life Class : My Week in View
I was taken by friends to the play Calendar Girls this week and in the play the characters have to be semi-naked on stage, which is very brave of the actors, as is all performance in public that calls for revealing the unclothed body. Kenneth Clark wrote brilliantly...
The Eyes Have It : My Week in View
I love to photograph and draw the eyes. The power of eye contact is in our DNA, they are truly the gateway to the soul. When you first learn to draw portraits you are always taught not to begin with the eyes, for good reason, they have a direct power which should not...
The Sun is God : My Week in View
“the Sun is God” are said to be the moving last words uttered by Joseph Mallord William Turner, in my opinion the greatest painter these islands have ever produced. It was his birthday this week, which amazingly he shares with Shakespeare and St Georges Day. Quite a...
1914-2014 : A Century in View
We are currently surrounded by a stream of media memories of the outbreak of the first World War. My own father, born in 1901, was just too young to serve in that war but he was to serve with honour in the Desert Campaign of the next. Through him and his generation's...
The Hands of Time : My Week in View
Art is never still, always moving. I often work on a piece over several weeks, changing and overpainting. The work evolves until it speaks directly. Progress is an uncertain thing, evolution is a better word. Art of course has evolved, every age has its contemporary,...
Shine Here to Us : My Week in View
In a week of troubled and darker skies I have finished painting a sunrise. The sun is our constant source of light and life. It never fails us and inspires awe in its power and grandeur. John Donne wrote wonderfully about our Suns eternal source in his poem "The Sun...
Matisse the Master : My Week in View
For as long as I can remember Matisse has been, with Picasso, the defining inspiration for creative modern artists. He hovers above us always out of reach as both painter and sculptor of genius. One of my personal claims to fame was that I was alive before he died in...
Whistler in the Darkness : My Week in View
I am member of the Chelsea Arts Club, a wonderful institution founded in 1891 by the painter James McNeill Whistler. He is, I think, still an underrated artists who influenced many and fought the battle for modernism, nearly ruining himself in the process. His famous...
Bowie to Rodin, Mythologies : My Week in View
Bowie: Art’s survivors are a special breed, not just the classics but those artists who continue to be relevant throughout their lifetime and beyond. This week I was again working on lyrics for a song with composer Thol Mason on the theme of Icarus and myth of human...
Abstract : My Week in View
Everything comes around they say and art movements like fashion can also have a cyclical nature. One day the zeitgeist is just ready to understand or revisit ideas. Abstract painting, once the centre of the storm in the post-war art world is making something of a...
Life Class : My Week in View
I was taken by friends to the play Calendar Girls this week and in the play the characters have to be semi-naked on stage, which is very brave of the actors, as is all performance in public that calls for revealing the unclothed body. Kenneth Clark wrote brilliantly...
Blues for Pablo : My week in View
This last few weeks several different influences have occurred simultaneously in my work. Thinking about Picasso, over 40 years after his death he is still very much all around us. Last week one of his works achieved the highest ever price at auction, an...
Mirror Image : My Week in View
The sea is a mirror of the sky. The land is a mirror of the light. So much of what we see are reflections of something else, even of our personality. I am fascinated by this duality both of perception and action. We are always observing horizons, that vanishing point...
Greek Beauty : My Week in View
This week a superlative show of Greek art at the British Museum was a revelation. Its focus is on the sensuality and humanity of the body depicted in Classical Greek sculpture. This was the first time in art that nudity was celebrated for its own sake,...
Returning to the Studio : My Week in View
After an enforced break, this month I am back in the studio and very much enjoying working again. Since the end of last year I have been letting other influences flow over me including two visits to the wonderful Turner exhibition at Tate Britain “Painting Set Free”,...
A Year in View
Thank you to you all for your support and interest in my work this year. It has been a very busy, emotional and creative year for me, ending with a successful and very well received show at the Calken Gallery. It was particularly enjoyable to work with Vanessa Clark...
November 2014 Exhibition : “poetic liberation of the spirit”
Vanessa Clark presents: "poetic liberation of the spirit" New Paintings on Canvas and Works on Paper by David Cottingham. Including the launch of the "Broken Hearts" Series. Hosted and Curated by Vanessa Clark for VC Art Exhibition Dates : 19th-25th November Preview...