GEORGE BELLOWS: MODERN AMERICAN LIFE, Royal Academy of the Arts

A picture taken from my trip to New York, January 2013 

New. York. Just take a second to remember it. Have you got a tingling sensation? A creeping and sudden burst of excitement for no apparent reason? I think George Bellows shared the same sentiment. He could feel there was something special about the city. It was the place to be. So as a 22-year-old in 1904 he moved to New York City and over the course of two decades he logged it like a journalist with a paintbrush.

He recorded the raucous gatherings on election nights in Times Square (named after the leading – and my favourite – newspaper after it moved to the site). He captured brutal and gritty fights that were organised by private clubs when the state declared a ban on public boxing. If Raging Bull (film released in 1980) is the greatest boxing movie of all time, then Bellows is Martin Scorsese's painting predecessor. Just like today's movie makers, he had a fascination with telling the story of gritty New York. He repeatedly painted tenement life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in front of a backdrop of skyscrapers. Though it was a turbulent time, he could see the strength of the urban poor and that New Yorker resilience. The exhibition starts with this, so you won't want to turn back.

By early 20th Century, New York was the cultural capital of America and Bellows tried to capture the full range of its diverse society. He started to paint the relaxed, fashionable and middle-class who spent their leisure time in New York's parks. There's an oil painting called Summer Night, Riverside Drive (below), where a couple walk down a pathway with their dog in semi darkness. It's in stark contrast to Bellow's darker paintings of New York, but it's equally amazing. I might be bias because I'm a sucker for light captured in a painting, and here the street lamp is like a full moon at night. You can almost feel the evening chill; smell the thickness of the trees and hear the water rippling.

The thing you need to know about Bellows is he was almost obsessed with painting like an Old Master (the great textbook artists we've all heard of). Aside from doing illustrations for news magazines for an income, he tried to do a bit of Matisse with the way he painted in small and short brushstrokes, a bit of Manet by using limited and opulent colours and he was inspired by Titian's famous Sacred and Profane Love (1514). He took what was loved by the old and brought it into modern day New York, almost making himself a master of the new. The New Master.

You're guaranteed a good story at most exhibitions at the Royal Academy (bar the Summer exhibition – come back on 10 June). They don't expect you to figure out what on earth is going on or why you should care about an artist. They invite you into that artist's world. And what makes this one better is it's a city we are still in love with.

Exhibition information
Name: George Bellows (1882-1925): Modern American Life
When: 16 March - 9 June 2013
Where: Royal Academy of Art, The Sackler Wing of Galleries, 2nd Floor, Burlington House.
Room Count: 6
Art Count: 21 works – 38 paintings, 14 drawings, 17 lithographs
Standard ticket price: £10 each

Stag at Sharky's by George Bellows, 1909, The Cleveland Museum of Art

Men of the Docks by George Bellows, 1912, Randolph College

New York by George Bellows, 1911, National Gallery of Art Washington

Love of Winter by George Bellows, 1914, The Art Institute of Chicago

Summer Night, Riverside Drive by George Bellows, 1909, Columbia Museum of Art

North River by George Bellows, 1908, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

"Try everything that can be done. Be deliberate. Be spontaneous. Be thoughtful and painstaking. 
Be abandoned and impulsive. Learn your own possibilities" 
- The New York attitude as said by George Bellows in 1920.

RCA SECRET SALE 2013

AFFORDABLE ART FAIR, BATTERSEA 2013

Painting by Candice Tripp as featured at the Affordable Art Fair

It's true, art fairs aren't exactly the most inviting. In my fantasy land they would be places of paintings and candy floss; a place where everyone smiles and buys art. In reality they are somewhat like a dentist's waiting room. A little cold, lots of white, and not so many smiles. But the Affordable Art Fair is in town to brighten the scene and prove it all wrong.

I didn't expect it to be so fun. It's packed with all sorts of art – prints of vintage spoons, giant photographs of scenes from around the world, moving portraits and those pieces that make you laugh or   frown. If there was ever a place where every taste in art could be satisfied it's this. The other amazing thing is I could easily talk to gallery owners about any piece I liked.

It's set in an awkward location – Battersea Park, although it also pops up in Hampstead and Bristol over the year – but a shuttle bus service from Sloane Square makes you feel like Knightsbridge royalty. This is what makes it physically accessible. Financially, everything is between £40 to £40,000 so in theory it's for big shots and small pockets. But I'll say that anything with a $40 price tag is a reproduced print the size of a post card. So unless you have a slice of wall that could just do with a sliver of art, the fair is worth going to for a day or afternoon out. The down-to-earth organisers hold regular quick-fire tours to give you an idea of what's on show and how to approach art. Each stop takes you to a different gallery stall, where the managers are given a minute to explain what they're selling and why. There's also artisan food and drink. It all seems pretty posh, but the nice part is, it's really not.

Kitchen perfection. This would look great near a dining table.

The books had been on the shelf for so long the words in their titles travelled onto other covers.

Be so good they can't ignore you

You are my sunshine...

They wished their £1000 purchase didn't look like a Next sale 

GEORGE CATLIN: AMERICAN INDIAN PORTRAITS, National Portrait Gallery

Crystal Stone, wife of the chief Blackfoot/Kainai; Buffalo Bull, a grand Pawnee warrior; and Buffalo Bulls 

Back Fat, head chief of Blood Tribe Blackfoot/Kainai, By George Catlin. Copyright: Smithsonian 

 You could say he's an Attenborough of art* and it's the free exhibition everyone must visit.

In 1830s America, a former lawyer and self-trained artist decided to devote seven years of his life to documenting a threatened and what he predicted to be a "dying" population. The American Indians (as the exhibition calls them, but also known as Native Americans) faced major challenges when a new law forced them to move from west of Mississippi River. Their migration journey was so devastating the native americans labelled it 'The Trail of Tears'. Having witnessed this, George Catlin imposed himself with a mission to record every indigenous American he met before "their passing from the face of the earth".

In total he created 500 paintings and it is the most comprehensive series of Native American portraits in existence. Titled The Indian Gallery, the portraits were displayed in the National Portrait Gallery's Egyptian Hall for the first time and it's in this same hall 75 years later that Catlin's portraits return – bear in mind there are only fifty portraits from the original collection (all currently housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum) on show.

I wouldn't say it's an exhibition of incredible painting skills; you should go to see it for the spectacle Catlin captured, for the fiery reds and oranges of that population who were succeeded by giant burgers and the Kardashian's, and for proof that a lawyer can paint and make justice in the world.

* As in the king of documentaries, not lover of animals.

Exhibition information
Name: George Catlin: American Indian Portraits
When: 7 March - 23 June 2013
Where: National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, WC2H 0HE
Room Count: approximately 4
Art Count: Over 50 portraits
Standard ticket price: free

l-r: exhibition leaflet cover, exhibition leaflet, my drawn floor plan, exhibition wall description.