TheCommonViewer's Avatar

TheCommonViewer

@thecommonviewer

Independent researcher. British Art Groups 1830s-1930s. Early 20th century Art & Visual Culture: London, Paris, Moscow & beyond. Work in (slow) progress: "Nancy Cunard - An Uncommon Viewer".

77
Followers
236
Following
18
Posts
14.11.2024
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by TheCommonViewer @thecommonviewer

Post image

'The Orange Seller.' (c1960) Reginald Brill was an English social realist and narrative painter whose work primarily depicts the lives of ordinary people and the landscapes that they inhabit.

10.02.2026 07:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 111 ๐Ÿ” 16 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Today would have been Brynhild Parker's birthday as she was born on 10th February 1907. Attached herewith are her paintings of "Saloon Bar(1931)": "Appledore(1932)": "Islington Street Scene(1935)" & "Windy Day on Marine Parade, Southend(1930)"ex the collection at the Beecroft Gallery, Southend #botd

10.02.2026 09:36 ๐Ÿ‘ 39 ๐Ÿ” 16 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Pearl Binder
TO-DAY THE FUTURE of European Culture is being decided on Spanish soil.
All sincere writers must support the legal Spanish Government in its heroic struggle for learning and liberty against the dark forces of General Franco.
Ralph Fox was one of us.

Pearl Binder TO-DAY THE FUTURE of European Culture is being decided on Spanish soil. All sincere writers must support the legal Spanish Government in its heroic struggle for learning and liberty against the dark forces of General Franco. Ralph Fox was one of us.

Pearl Binder (artist, writer, & East End chronicler): โ€˜the future of European Culture is being decided on Spanish soil. All sincere writers must support the legal Spanish Government in its heroic struggle for learning and liberty against the dark forces of General Franco. Ralph Fox was one of us.โ€™

09.02.2026 17:38 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

'Watney's Red', Hammersmith (1970s) by Ruskin Spear

(Private collection)

09.02.2026 16:40 ๐Ÿ‘ 91 ๐Ÿ” 12 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Post image

A film currently screening at Sundance Film Festival in Utah offers a unique look into the Harlem Renaissance. Once Upon a Time in Harlem gathers footage from a gathering at Duke Ellingtonโ€™s home of some of the movementโ€™s most important figures.

buff.ly/FKIsM4q

29.01.2026 17:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

#BookoftheWeek

Venice Requiem by @khalidlym.bsky.social, translated by Ros Schwartz and published by @hoperoadpublish.bsky.social โ€” โ€œA vibrant and poetic tribute to all African migrants. A necessary bookโ€ (Jury of the Alain Spiess Second Novel Prize).

๐Ÿ‘‰ www.hoperoadpublishing.com/books/venice...

28.01.2026 12:59 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 3 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Samuel John Peploe: the success story of a Scottish Colourist | Art UK Samuel John Peploe (1871โ€“1935) was the most successful โ€“ critically and commercially โ€“ of the four artists known as 'the Scottish Colourists', the others being Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883โ€“1937), John Duncan Fergusson (1874โ€“1961) and George Leslie Hunter (1877โ€“1931).

Samuel John Peploe was born #OnThisDay in 1871 ๐ŸŽจ

Read about the success story of the Scottish Colourist ๐Ÿ‘‰ https://artuk.org/discover/stories/samuel-john-peploe-the-success-story-of-a-scottish-colourist

๐Ÿ“ท National Galleries of Scotland

27.01.2026 12:33 ๐Ÿ‘ 11 ๐Ÿ” 6 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Andrey Kurkov: People no longer ask me how the Ukraine war will end Ukraine's most famous writer dreams of a time when he can stop documenting the conflict and focus on fiction

Sober and compelling, interview with Andrey Kurkov Viva Ukraine! @meganjgibson.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

17.01.2026 12:57 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 4 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

A fascinating evening with artist Helen Cammock and architectural historian Andrew Jones discussing The Line in East London!

21.01.2026 20:53 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Painting of an interior, a room of a grand house with a focus on a table on which a pretty pink box is sited next to a tamp, behind are chairs and an open interior doorway to the left though which figures in the distance sit and stand

Painting of an interior, a room of a grand house with a focus on a table on which a pretty pink box is sited next to a tamp, behind are chairs and an open interior doorway to the left though which figures in the distance sit and stand

US born painter Ethel Sands,
The Pink Box, 1913 #Womensart

21.01.2026 09:08 ๐Ÿ‘ 293 ๐Ÿ” 42 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
 In the Studio

Is it March, spring, winter, autumn, twilight, noon
Told in this distant sound of cuckoo clocks?
Sunday it isโ€”five lilies in swoon
Decay against your wall, aggressive flocks
Of alley-starlings aggravate a mood.
The rain drops pensively. โ€˜If one could paint,
Combine the abstract with a certain rude
Individual form, knot passion with restraintโ€ฆ
If one could use the murk that fills a brain,
Undo old symbols and beget again
Fresh meaning on dead emblemโ€ฆโ€™ so one lies
Here timeless, while the liliesโ€™ withering skin
Attests the hours, and rain sweeps from the skies,
The bird sits on the chimney, looking in.

Nancy Cunard (British, 1896โ€“1965), โ€œIn the Studio,โ€ 1923, unpublished poem. Unpublished scrapbook 1921โ€“1927, Nancy Cunard Collection, 26.3, Harry Ransom Center.

In the Studio Is it March, spring, winter, autumn, twilight, noon Told in this distant sound of cuckoo clocks? Sunday it isโ€”five lilies in swoon Decay against your wall, aggressive flocks Of alley-starlings aggravate a mood. The rain drops pensively. โ€˜If one could paint, Combine the abstract with a certain rude Individual form, knot passion with restraintโ€ฆ If one could use the murk that fills a brain, Undo old symbols and beget again Fresh meaning on dead emblemโ€ฆโ€™ so one lies Here timeless, while the liliesโ€™ withering skin Attests the hours, and rain sweeps from the skies, The bird sits on the chimney, looking in. Nancy Cunard (British, 1896โ€“1965), โ€œIn the Studio,โ€ 1923, unpublished poem. Unpublished scrapbook 1921โ€“1927, Nancy Cunard Collection, 26.3, Harry Ransom Center.

Fun fact: Cunard composed a poem while sitting for McCown's 1923 portrait. Her unpublished typescript can also be found in @ransomcenter.bsky.social's collections.

For further details, check out Tracy Bonfitto's blog post from last March: sites.utexas.edu/ransomcenter...

#speccolls #humanities ๐Ÿ—ƒ๏ธ๐Ÿ“œ๐Ÿ“š

28.05.2025 17:58 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

my piece on Nancy Cunard for forthcoming Inque magazine No.3

12.06.2025 14:43 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Nancy Cunard and the 1930s Coalitional Anthology Abstract. This essay addresses Pablo Neruda and Nancy Cunardโ€™s Spanish Civil War poetry anthology Los poetas del mundo defienden al pueblo espanol alongside Cunardโ€™s earlier anthology, her massive and...

Matthew Beeber's fascinating reading of Negro alongside Los poetas - โ€œNancy Cunard and the 1930s Coalitional Anthology.โ€
doi.org/10.1215/0010...

06.08.2025 02:17 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
A Closer Look: Eugene McCown's 1923 Portrait of Nancy Cunard
A Closer Look: Eugene McCown's 1923 Portrait of Nancy Cunard YouTube video by Harry Ransom Center

It's lovely, though I've also enjoyed the portrait of Nancy Cunard which has been on display in the lobby while Frida was on tour.

youtu.be/QbwVJt32wB0?...

(I've only seen a few of the Diego & Frida drawings, which are similarly impressive...)

08.08.2025 15:37 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

'Nancy Cunard,' (1919) seen here in a portrait by the Chilean painter รlvaro Guevara is the subject for numerous works of art including a Brรขncusi sculpture andย a study by Kokoschka. Guevara studied at the Slade and was at the heart of the Bloomsbury and Chelsea sets.

19.01.2026 21:27 ๐Ÿ‘ 95 ๐Ÿ” 10 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I curated this exhibition and it is on at Charleston in Lewes until April. You absolutely donโ€™t need to have read my novel to appreciate the works on show. AND It has pictures that have never been seen in public before!

20.01.2026 11:34 ๐Ÿ‘ 23 ๐Ÿ” 7 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 3

Looking forward to this!

20.01.2026 11:55 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

'Gattiโ€™s Hungerford Palace of Varieties. Second Turn of Katie Lawrence' (1903) by Walter Sickert

(Yale Art Gallery)

15.01.2026 13:06 ๐Ÿ‘ 85 ๐Ÿ” 11 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Painting of a bunch of flowers with large blooms in yellow, red and orange in a green vase on a white surface

Painting of a bunch of flowers with large blooms in yellow, red and orange in a green vase on a white surface

Gabriele Mรผnter,
Dahlias, 1945
Expression painter
#Womensart

15.01.2026 07:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 564 ๐Ÿ” 79 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 4
Preview
Natasha Fedorson ยท Men are like road signs: On Ludmilla Petrushevskaya โ€˜Whoโ€™s afraid of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya?โ€™ was the title of an essay that appeared in a Russian รฉmigrรฉ literary...

โ€˜She hates Gorky and Tolstoy (โ€œa graphomaniacโ€). She admits few influences and even fewer heirs. Asked to name five great novels, she refused: โ€œIโ€™m not a reader, Iโ€™m a writer.โ€โ€™

Natasha Fedorson on the Russian novelist Ludmilla Petrushevskaya:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

14.01.2026 20:30 ๐Ÿ‘ 10 ๐Ÿ” 4 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Russiaโ€™s Leading Publisher Shutters Queer-Interest YA Imprint Months After โ€˜Extremismโ€™ Arrests - The Moscow Times Russiaโ€™s largest book publisher Eksmo has shut down its embattled young-adult literature subsidiary Popcorn Books, which became a primary target of the Kremlinโ€™s crackdown on so-called โ€œLGBT extremism...

Russiaโ€™s largest book publisher Eksmo has shut down its embattled young-adult literature subsidiary Popcorn Books, which became a primary target of the Kremlinโ€™s crackdown on so-called โ€œLGBT extremism.โ€

13.01.2026 16:17 ๐Ÿ‘ 7 ๐Ÿ” 4 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
How Constable ploughed his own furrow The painter abandoned his father's corn business to pursue his artistic training โ€“ but it was his real agricultural knowledge that set him apart from his contemporaries

John Constableโ€™s understanding of the landscape, gained as a reluctant apprentice in his fatherโ€™s corn business, set him apart from his contemporaries. Plough technology, barge-caulking, dunghillsโ€ฆ it was all, ultimately, grist to his mill, writes Susan Owens

13.01.2026 09:46 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova In this captivating and capacious novel from Stepanova (In Memory of Memory), a 50-year-old novelist experiences a bizarre and l...

'Far from a literary gimmick, the novel comes across as an urgent call to resist complacency and recover oneโ€™s vitality in the face of injustice. Itโ€™s a stunner.' @publisherswkly.bsky.social gives THE DISAPPEARING ACT by Maria Stepanova, tr. Sasha Dugdale: www.publishersweekly.com/9780811239400

21.11.2025 13:31 ๐Ÿ‘ 14 ๐Ÿ” 4 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
On the road with Ithell Colquhoun The artist and occultistโ€™s rapturous account of her Irish travels give a glimpse into her surreal view of the world, writes Philippa Conlon

In the 1950s, the artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun published a rapturous account of her travels in Ireland. Philippa Conlon considers what her writing says about the surreal ways in which she saw โ€“ and painted โ€“ the world

13.01.2026 02:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

'Child in the Sun.' (1869) Trained in Naples, Giuseppe de Nittis settled in Paris in 1868, and there he befriended many of the French Impressionists, particularly Degas who taught him how to depict the changing play of light on a subject or a scene.

13.01.2026 07:21 ๐Ÿ‘ 122 ๐Ÿ” 13 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

NEW REVIEWS in britishartjournal.co.uk. Roderick Conway Morris reviews a glorious exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery of the work of one of Denmarkโ€™s greatest artists, Anna Archer (1859โ€“1935). David Stacey offers more thoughts on the Wright of Derby exhibition at the National Gallery

07.01.2026 16:52 ๐Ÿ‘ 757 ๐Ÿ” 76 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 4 ๐Ÿ“Œ 5
Preview
The ghost of Jane Harrison The woman who haunts Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own

The ghost of the Cambridge classical scholar Jane Harrison haunts the pages of Virginia Woolfโ€™s A Room of One's Own (1929). Here's my post on the layers of connections, for over 30 years, these two writers shared.

11.01.2026 16:26 ๐Ÿ‘ 118 ๐Ÿ” 35 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Preview
How Constable ploughed his own furrow The painter abandoned his father's corn business to pursue his artistic training โ€“ but it was his real agricultural knowledge that set him apart from his contemporaries

Constableโ€™s father โ€˜does not sound like a man who would have been happy to allow a capable son to wander around sketching all day when there was a business to be managedโ€™. But once free of the family agriculture business, writes Susan Owens, the artist turned his practical knowledge to painterly use

11.01.2026 09:30 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

This is "The Mill" by Phyllis Bray from 1933. The scene depicted was at Chalford in Gloucestershire on a section of the Thames and Severn canal. The round-house to the right on the canal bank was one of five "lengthmen's" houses: a distinctive feature of the Thames & Severn canal. #PhyllisBray

30.05.2025 08:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 23 ๐Ÿ” 5 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0