Visual Arts and architecture
Ceramicist Kaori Tatebayashi in her studio
Chairman: Simon Tate (acting)
Hon Secretary: Clare Finn FinnClare@aol.com
The Visual Arts and Architecture section was established in 2007 and is now in its tenth year. We began presenting awards to in 2011 when we gave our highest tribute to the architect David Chipperfield.
News & Reviews
Popular Pachyderms: Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art 1500-1860 at the Barber Institute.
Maybe you have been fortunate enough to see a rhinoceros in the flesh, running at full tilt with a speed and agility that defies its bulk. They carry with them the aura of the African plains and the jungles of India and you know you have been privileged to see one....
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Dame Janet Baker accepts the Rosebowl
At the National Liberal Club last week, the Critics’ Circle presented the opera singer Dame Janet Baker with the Rosebowl Award for "Distinguished Service to Art". The vote for this most endearing of prime donne had been cast in 2019 but certain world health issues...
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Rosebowl lunch 2020 for Michael Frayn
On Wednesday 14 July 2021, towards the end of the morning, the Critics' Circle helped to get the wheels of live social intercourse moving again when fifty members arrived for luncheon at the National Liberal Club. The guest of honour was novelist and playwright...
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Transgressive Technique – Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty
Reacting against academic art and the classical tenets on which it is based, Dubuffet sought meaning in overlooked, base matter and the forgotten in society. Born in 1901 in Le Havre, he decided early he wanted to become an artist. He attended night classes in life...
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Michael Frayn wins 2020 Rosebowl
Every year since 1988, the Critics’ Circle has voted for a single leading artist to receive an engraved crystal Rosebowl in recognition of their distinguished contribution to the arts. The first recipient was Sir Peter Hall, Director of the National Theatre and...
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Mary Newcomb for the looking
For those coming across the work of the British painter, Mary Newcomb, for the first time her paintings may look naïve. Her proportions seem wrong. Her fore- and backgrounds come across as being amorphous, all on one plane. She seems not to use perspective. But there...
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Woman with Her Throat Cut – Alberto Giacometti, 1932 By Sue Hubbard
‘A fetish is a story masquerading as an object’ - Robert Stoller This morning I heard on the radio that the body of Sarah Everard, a young woman missing for a week, has been found in undergrowth and that a member of the Metropolitan police has been arrested. We may...
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Dame Janet Baker wins Critics’ Circle award for Distinguished Service to the Arts
One of the greatest living stars of British classical music, the mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker CH DBE, was voted the winner of the 2019 Critics' Circle Rosebowl by the 500 members of the Circle. Regrettably both the announcement and the award have been delayed by the...
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