Entangled pasts.

Skived off late afternoon to meet Vikram to see the Entangled Pasts exhibition at the RA. It’s well named and is about the role of art at the time of peak British involvement in the slave trade, counterpointed and commented on by black and Indian artists of today.   This The First Supper which installed in the courtyard shows a group of black activists from different centuries posing around the central figure of Haile Selassie.  Second along is Harriet Tubman and the man in the hat is Marcus Garvey but I forgot to take a snap of the sign so can’t name them all. 

Inside there were some fascinating work, Reynolds’ portrait of Frances Barber, the servant and beneficiary of Samuel Johnson, a powerful room on the relationship of the sea and slavery with an amazing Turner and a huge and mesmerising Frank Bowling.   Also, for @xtoph1 a painting by Edward Penny a distant ancestor of ours (descended from his twin brother) who was the first professor of painting at the RA.  He wasn’t black, it was about depiction of India at the period.  

We popped across the road over to a new restaurant, part of Fortnums for dinner which was lovely but hugely expensive and full of wealthy Americans.  We kept it simple.  

The trains home were a disaster so we got a slow train to Guildford and then had to take a taxi back to Petersfield which was nearly £100 so an over expensive night all round.