On Friday 17 January we took our Upper Fifth students on a trip to the Tate Modern and V&A in London. The purpose of the visit was to gain first hand research to inspire the start of their exam projects. Students spent the day sketching out compositions, recording artists names, dates and key words to do with the images they saw. They also took photographers to share their inspiration with examiners in their sketchbooks.
The Tate’s permanent collection rooms included work from Monet, Richter, Picasso and Dali which allowed our painting students to see the vast differences in paint application. We also had a chance to see the current exhibitions from Nam June Paik an artist who embraced mass media and modern technology and a retrospective of Dora Marr’s work.
In the afternoon we saw an amazing show by Tim Walker which included ten new series of work inspired by collections at the V&A. This contained the artists sketches, tests and work books planning his inspiration from paintings, stained glass, illustrations and objects he had chosen from the V&A. The students loved this exhibition and saw clearly how artists can use other objects to help inform a new project. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the V&A’s collections including the Photography, Sculpture, Painting and Ceramic rooms. All students had a fantastic trip and commented that they ‘wish there’d been more time!’
Ali Shurville
Teacher of Art and Photography
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