Stalin was not a popular man. Indeed, according to the display in Russia’s State Museum of Political History in St Petersburg, Stalin’s regime was an abomination. Through films, posters, contemporary documents and a life-size mock-up of a family’s squalid living quarters, visitors are left in no doubt - from the perspective of the museum’s curators,…
In Brittany Skies
I am pleased to announce that I have made another change. This time it concerns how I view the sky - I now love it. Here, I refer only to daytime skies when all is visible and little is left to guesswork. At night, much goes unseen and what is visible is often mysterious, sometimes…
The Bus Shelter Mystery Resolved
For months I missed the unmissable. Hanging above the doorway of the bus shelter opposite our Tréguennec home is a most striking mask which, for almost a year, went unnoticed - it is the one on the left in the illustration. With its bottle tops for eyes and an upside-down hook for its nose and…
The Onion, the Beetroot and the Naïve Gaffe
While my wife, Rohan and I were spending a few weeks in the wintry antipodes (see Reconnecting Down Under), the plants in our Brittany garden were enjoying a summer heatwave. Friends regularly watered them, so the sun, which elsewhere was causing mayhem, simply helped our vegetables mature. On our return, the tomato plants were over…
Reconnecting Down Under
The Australian artist John Peter Russell is one of my heroes. In 1884, at the age of 26, he went to France where he stayed for forty years. There, he was befriended by Rodin, Van Gogh and Monet, was one of Matisse’s key teachers, became a highly respected ‘French’ impressionist, and was then wiped out…
“It’s the Bottle”
Henri was standing at the side of the road hitching a lift. Like me, he was heading for the neighbouring town of Pont L’Abbé; in all, the drive would take about ten minutes. These days I rarely give lifts to strangers but the sky was leaden, the forecast was for rain and he was alone;…
Tales from Two Exhibitions
I rarely come away from an exhibition without some new insight. The exhibits themselves will be important but it is new ideas that will dominate and, if I am lucky, change how I think. And so it was with an exhibition at the British Museum on ‘Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece’. It jolted…
Freedom Amongst the Bluebells
I am addicted to reading the inscriptions on park benches. Those on gravestones used to be my favourites - ‘I told you I was ill’ was one of the best. However, around us in Richmond graveyards are rare while benches are now commonplace. Our council even has a website setting out its rules for public…
Family Ties
My wife, Rohan, has been dreaming of visiting Saint Petersburg since her teens. She has a warmth for Russia, for Russian literature and for the Russian language and, fittingly, she studied Russian at school and took it up again after retirement. For years, Rohan has cherished a photograph of her grandmother, Annie Forsyth, taken in…
One Man and his Dog
This story tells of an episode that occurred in a tiny village in Brittany. It is here, in Tréguennec, that we now spend much of the year and where we witnessed a series of events that brought feelings of pride and shame in equal measure. Although the episode is now over, thoughts about it…
The Joe Collier Blog 