A journey into Art

Year 10 GCSE Art students made the most of a trip to London on Monday when they visited the Saatchi Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Courtauld Gallery. The girls are currently focussing on a unit of work based on the theme “Journeys’’ and the purpose of the visit was to allow them to gain inspiration from the work of a range of artists.

At the Saatchi Gallery the girls viewed the “Painters’ Painters” exhibition – a show devoted to the art of painting featuring work from nine artists including Ryan Mosley, Ansel Krut, Dexter Dalwood and Raffi Kalenderian. The girls had a guided tour of the gallery which really helped them to understand more about the paintings they saw and the artists included in the exhibition.

They then moved on to the National Portrait Gallery to see the acclaimed “Picasso’s Portraits” exhibition. This major exhibition of over 80 works focuses on the Picasso’s portrayal of family, friends and lovers and reveals his creative processes as he moved freely between drawing from life, humorous caricature and expressive painting from memory. The girls took time to sketch and take inspiration from the collection which includes celebrated masterpieces loaned by international institutions alongside work private collections being shown in the United Kingdom for the first time.

Their final stop was the Courtauld Gallery where the girls enjoyed a guided gallery tour which focussed on Impressionism.

Head of Art, Mr Webber said, “The girls’ visit to London has provided them with a great deal of inspiration. They will now reflect on everything they have seen, carry out research into the work of the artists that particularly interested them and use their sketches as a stimulus for their own pieces of art.”