Dido Powell’s London gallery tours, 2018-19

Following the success of her gallery tours in 2017-18, artist and educator Dido Powell is running a new series of gallery tours in association with the AoI Arts & Society Forum. Please note the change of dates from those orginally advertised. The next tour is on Sunday 24 March.

Sunday 20 January - Victoria & Albert Museum
Sculpture as Heroism: power and strength through material presence, sensual beauty and classicism
Starting in the Victorian Cast gallery of Renaissance freestanding and relief sculpture, we will explore themes of narrative, civic pride and technical innovation, as well as the challenge presented by ‘the cast’ to the concept of a unique object. The impact of Renaissance concepts of individualism will also be discussed through examples of portrait sculpture and allegorical and mythological subjects from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, using examples from the central Sculpture galleries.

Sunday 24 February - The National Gallery
The Versatility of Myth: Mythological and allegorical subjects’ hidden political and social meanings
Allegory and myth will also be looked at in relation to contextual political events, the boundaries for eroticism in art, as well as opulent displays of wealth. Examples will be taken from the Renaissance, Botticelli, Titian and Veronese through to the ‘Grand Manner’ of Reynolds, Rococo and Turner’s early paintings of ‘the sublime’.

Sunday 24 March - The Wallace Collection
The Grand, The Domestic and The Frivolous: Paintings inspired by high and low life subjects
We will study Dutch genre paintings of everyday domestic working life and their moral tales; paintings of Rococo leisure, play and artifice, grand portraits and romantic sublime landscapes as well as Dutch working landscapes from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century.

Sunday 28 April – The National Portrait Gallery
From Symbol to Individual: From the Tudors to contemporary Royals, from official groups to family groups, from status single portraits to the intimate portrait
Themes of achievement, power, death and inheritance will be explored alongside the presentation of individual and group action and the impact of changing painting styles upon the meanings of portraits. Examples will be chosen from across the collection.

Sunday 2 June – Tate Modern (the new wing)
Colour, Materiality and Techniques in Art now
From the new collections we will look at the development, uses and meanings of colour in non-figurative art alongside techniques of production. We will explore ways in which the Modernist ethos of truth to materials has lead to the self-sufficiency of matter (iron, stone, light, for example) and the elimination of matter. Examples will be taken from the most recent exhibits in the new galleries.

Each tour starts at 11:00am and runs for about 90 minutes.