just finished reading Tiepolo Blue by James Cahill. went in thinking it was a book about academia, art, and queer love -- it turns out, it's all of those things but in much more grotty terms than i was imagining. beautiful book, if a little depraved at times. 😵‍💫

The art dealer’s eye: John Kasmin’s photos of Hockney & co. in the 1960s/70s – scenes from Liverpool, St Tropez, Udaipur & Pasadena ⁦Lyndsey Ingram⁩ London until 23 August

"The Great Beauty"-- what a profound, haunting film. I have seen it twice, & want to see it again. (though there is not one person in the film with whom I can identify, & the Roman life depicted is utterly alien to the life I have led, or even know about first-hand, this is a

“Baldwin has a special tone to describe the Southern night. A special eloquence, a way of balancing his sentences, using elaborate description and then a plain statement—moving from human feelings to ones that embrace the Almighty …” Colm Tóibín The New York Review of Books nybooks.com/online/2024/08…

The 1924 Paris Olympics “were a turning point not just for the history of athletics, but for race and class, politics, money and celebrity, and for their expression in modern art.” Laura Cumming on ‘Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body’ Fitzwilliam Museum theguardian.com/artanddesign/a…

“He was naked, but his form was wrapped about with the soft star-lighted air; his lashes were no longer moist with tears, but his face shone as became one whom the Very Love was to be revealed.” Simeon Solomon, died 14 August 1905, has a vision of Love. #simeonsolomon

I greatly enjoyed speaking with Felix Armstrong about TIEPOLO BLUE and university life for Varsity — tribes, posturing, and the pain of seeing oneself: varsity.co.uk/arts/27971

Mary Beale, ‘Sketches of the Artist’s Son, Bartholomew Beale’, c. 1660 #NowYouSeeUs Tate Britain

Pilgrim soul: Gwen John, ‘Self-portrait’, 1902 #NowYouSeeUs Tate Britain

Paper flowers: Vanessa Bell, ‘Still Life on Corner of a Mantelpiece’, 1914 #NowYouSeeUs Tate Britain

Women on the verge: Laura Knight, ‘At the Edge of the Cliff’, c. 1917 / ‘A Dark Pool’, c. 1917 #NowYouSeeUs Tate Britain

Ezra Pound on a walk in the back streets of Venice, 1963.

This SAT 31st are the last two performances of #TheDreamerOfTheForest at Middelheimmuseum — we will be performing at 14:00 and 17:00 - The exhibition runs still til 29th Sep and the film version and set structure are still both on show until then - so come visit Antwerp ..!

“Where Saint Laurent cultivated the image of the tortured artist, Lagerfeld preferred an aura of the affectless hit man: a hired gun brought in to do a job on a label.” Adam Thirlwell on Karl Lagerfeld The New York Review of Books nybooks.com/articles/2024/…

“Fashion—or at least the version of fashion that governed out of Paris in the 1970s and 1980s—doesn’t care about your disdain or critique. Like capital, fashion can take anything.” On the brittle dandyism of Lagerfeld: Adam Thirlwell The New York Review of Books nybooks.com/articles/2024/… via The New York Review of Books

Reading “Small Rain” by Garth Greenwell and admiring the way he blurs boundaries and extends fiction into the realm of criticism.

New book for the Clark heads

The fact is, I am in a croaking mood, and I am waiting and waiting for it to pass by.. Ever since I came back [to London], I have felt something like the madness which imagines that the four walls are contracting and going to crush one. – George Eliot, Sept 2 1852

Friday 20 September! I’ll be talking about David Hockney National Gallery – Pictures within pictures. Coincides with ‘Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look’ (until 27 Oct). Mirrors, memory and the mise en abyme 🪞🤳 #FridayLates admission free – book here: nationalgallery.org.uk/events/friday-…

David Hockney's mother on Los Angeles: "All that lovely weather and you never see any washing out."