A Life In Art

Grosvenor Gallery

In this podcast series by Grosvenor Gallery, we speak to some of the artists we work with, as well as curators, collectors and other interesting figures in the industry.

Episodes

  1. 07/16/2021

    Steve McCurry & William Dalrymple

    We are very excited to announce this special bonus episode of A Life in Art, in which William Dalrymple is interviewed by the legendary photographer Steve McCurry. The pair discuss a wide range of subjects, from their first visits India, how they met, to their work in Afghanistan and the photography of Julia Margaret Cameron. Steve also selects his favourite images from William's exhibition, which is on display at the gallery until the 30th July 2021. A recording of the zoom interview between Steve and William, can be seen on our Instagram account: @grosvenorgallery, as well as on our website: www.grosvenorgallery.com Throughout his career, McCurry has produced some of the most recognisable and iconic photographs of recent times. His work spans conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture alike - yet always retains the human element that made his celebrated image of the Afghan Girl such a powerful image. In 2004, McCurry founded ImagineAsia, a non-profit organisation to help provide educational resources and opportunities to children and young adults in Afghanistan. The Traveller’s Eye is a visual diary of black and white photographs, shot over the last couple of years by William Dalrymple during his travels and research for his two books ‘The Anarchy’ and his upcoming book ‘The Golden Road’. William has followed the footsteps of the central characters in his books which has led him to travel extensively throughout the Indian subcontinent and modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and down to Sri Lanka, locations of many of the images in the exhibition. "I've been visiting all the places where this history took place – the battlefields and ruins, the mosques, Sufi shrines and temples, the paradise gardens and pleasure grounds, the barrack blocks and townhouses, the crumbling Mughal havelis and the palaces and forts." The Traveller's Eye: Photographs by William Dalrymple, runs at the gallery from the 1st - 30th July 2021. To purchase works from the show please visit our website, or look at our store on Instagram: @grosvenorgallery @alifeinart We hope you enjoy this episode. Please like, review and share wherever you listen to your podcasts.

    35 min
  2. 06/25/2021

    William Dalrymple

    In this episode we talk to William Dalrymple about his love of photography and his upcoming exhibition at Grosvenor Gallery, The Traveller’s Eye, taking place from the 1st to the 30th July 2021. We discuss his artistic heroes, his technique as well as experiences from his recent research trips. William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, the Duff Cooper prize winning The Last Mughal, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prizewinning Return of a King. His most recent book, The Anarchy, was long listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019, and short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal for Military History, the Tata Book of the Year (Non-fiction) and the Historical Writers Association Book Award 2020. It was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Bronze Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations.  William’s previous exhibitions include; The Writer's Eye, held at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, Sunaparanta: Goa Centre for the Arts and Grosvenor Gallery, London in 2016, and The Historian’s Eye, at Vadehra Art Gallery in 2019. An exhibition of William’s photographs titled The Traveller’s Eye will be displayed at Grosvenor Gallery in London from the 1st – 30 July 2021. The Traveller’s Eye is a visual diary of black and white photographs, shot over the last couple of years by William during his travels and research trips for his 2019 book The Anarchy and his forthcoming book The Golden Road. William has followed the footsteps of the central characters in his books which has led him to travel extensively throughout the Indian subcontinent, modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. The images will be published on our website on Friday 2nd July. Images and photographs of some of the places & locations mentioned in this episode will also be available to see on our podcast and gallery Instagram pages; @alifeinart and @grosvenorgallery. You can also follow William on Instragram: @williamdalrymple.   If you’d like to enquire about any of the works in the show our email address is art@grosvenorgallery.com. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please do subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen. We’ll be back with another episode very soon.

    35 min
  3. 07/28/2020

    Olivia Fraser

    Olivia Fraser is a contemporary British artist, who for the last 30 years has lived in India. Olivia has immersed herself in Indian culture, seeking not just to paint Indian scenes, but to fully understand and appreciate the myriad of ways of seeing in this vast country, creating a hybrid aesthetic of East and West. In 2005 she studied traditional miniature painting in Jaipur, which transformed the way she worked and looked at the world around her.  In this episode we talk about her inspirations, as well as the lasting impression the work of her ancestor, James Bailley Fraser, has left on her. Olivia shares the range of sources she draws on in her work, and also ‘decodes’ one of her paintings for us, helping to reveal its secrets. In 2019 Harper Collins published a book on her work, titled ‘The Journey Within’. This features nearly all the works painted by Olivia in the last thirty years. Copies of this are available from the gallery. You can follow Olivia on Instagram @oliviafraserart. You can see some of the works mentioned in this episode, as well as the references mentioned by Olivia on our podcast and gallery Instagram pages @alifeinart and @grosvenorgallery. Olivia’s work can also be seen on our website www.grosvenorgallery.com. Olivia teaches miniature painting workshops in Jaipur once a year. Details of those classes are available on her website www.oliviafraser.com  An exhibition of Olivia’s paintings will take place at Grosvenor Gallery at the beginning of August 2020. Please check our website, or email art@grosvenorgallery.com to receive details. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please do subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen. We’ll be back with another episode very soon.

    37 min
  4. 06/14/2020

    Faiza Butt

    In this episode we speak to the internationally renowned artist Faiza Butt. We discuss the influences behind her stunningly detailed works, as well as issues that have been thrown up by the Coronavirus crisis. We talk about her ceramic work, a medium Faiza has a strong affiliation with, as well as the techniques used in her paintings, and how her experiences at the Slade School of Art changed her practice. We also discuss how life in London and the experiences of her children bleed into her work. New paintings by Faiza are on display at Grosvenor Gallery from 11-26 June 2020, as part of the show ‘Form & Figure: Bodies of Art’, curated by Dr Zehra Jumabhoy, (in association with Canvas Gallery). The exhibition features the work of three figurative artists; Faiza Butt, Ali Kazim and Salman Toor. Their paintings explore the human form; probing ideas of the body, desire, masculinity and representations of alterity. Faiza also decodes the visuals used in her new works, which are partly based on childhood memories of bucolic gardens and fruit farms in Pakistan. Follow @faizaaugust7 on Instagram, and see images of the work in the exhibition ‘Form & Figure’ at grosvenorgallery.com or @grosvenorgallery on Instagram. Older work by Faiza will be posted on @alifeinart. Faiza’s 2010 show ‘Pehlwan’, which is talked about in the episode is available on the Grosvenor Gallery website under 'past exhibitions'. If you’ve enjoyed this episode please leave your feedback, and please share with those you think may be interested. Thank you for listening, we’ll be back with another episode soon.

    1h 2m

About

In this podcast series by Grosvenor Gallery, we speak to some of the artists we work with, as well as curators, collectors and other interesting figures in the industry.