Mayfair

We spent this morning window shopping and gallery hopping in Mayfair. We started at Bond Street Station and worked out way down (you guessed it) Bond Street, which is actually made up of two streets of the same name "New" and "Old" respectively. This is a London favorite of Libby. Of course, hardly a darn thing on the entire street is affordable. But where else will you see a 57 carat diamond ring in a store window? I'm just amazed that these stores have enough revenue trunover from customers to keep them viable.

After Bond Street, we popped over to Cork Street to visit the galleries. That is always fun for me. My favorite of this trip was Beaux Arts, which had an exhibit of Terry Frost's work from his estate. I was first exposed to Terry's work a number of years ago at the Summer Exhibition (Terry was an RA). This exhibit demonstrated the variety of his work, which included both collages and constructions (in addition to the usual paintings, sketchs, etc.). Critically, I'm not sure his constructions are thought of as highly as his collages, but I rather enjoyed them. In any case, the show was an enjoyable surprise given my appreciation for his work.

We also made out way back to the Royal Academy to see the RA Schools Show 2008. This is the graduation show of the students in the RA's visual arts post-graduate program. Like the Summer Exhibition, the works are generally for sale. The prices for these original works aren't too bad (though like everything else the exhange rate hurts us Americans), ranging from a few hundred to a couple thousand pounds. The less expensive (under 1,000 pounds) and more figurative works tended to sell best. On a whole, I was very impressed with this year's show. If I have the time, I will do a more complete write-up of this show (as the artists would probably benefit from as much exposure as possible, however humble the source).