The Oxford Times | History / Heritage

Matthew Arnold's life among 'the dreaming spires'

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:56:52 +0000

Isuppose Matthew Arnold, coiner of the phrase “City of Dreaming Spires”, embodies for many of us — who vaguely remember reading bits of him at school — the very essence of Oxford. But some might say that the spirit he affirms is more that of a relatively new Oxford — Victorian, mainly masculine, self confident, empire building — than that conjured up by his other much-quoted description of the place: “Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties.”

Recalling the cult of Bishop Blaze

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:12:10 +0000

February 3 is the feast of Bishop Blaze, the patron saint of woolcombers — and for centuries any woman found using her distaff on that day did so under the threat of having it confiscated and burned.

Sue Johnson's paper Museum: The Pitt Rivers Museum

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:07:44 +0000

In Sue Johnson’s Paper Museum her striking paintings provide portraits of ethnological artefacts whose whereabouts is unknown. She places them where they jostle, nestle and otherwise interact with birds, fish and plants, all in empathetic shapes. The artefacts have been drawn from the catalogue of General Pitt- Rivers ‘second’ collection.

Preview of John Piper exhibition at Blenheim Palace

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:27:26 +0000

Blenheim Palace is celebrating the opening of the season on February 11 with its first art exhibition in the Long Library. The display is of work by the renowned 20th-century British artist John Piper (1903-1992), including a series of 11 watercolours undertaken in the last decade of his life.

Preview of performance art at Ovada Warehouse, Oxford

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:30:05 +0000

OVADA (Oxford) and roves and roams (Reading) are co-producing a show of performance art at Ovada Warehouse, 14a Osney Lane, Oxford on Tuesday at 6.30pm.

We're knee-deep in history

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:25:38 +0000

Can any county be as full of the shades of dead writers as Oxfordshire?

David Hockney: The Bigger Picture. The Royal Academy, London

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:45:32 +0000

‘We think winter is drab, but you’re just not looking for the colours. They are there,” says David Hockney.

Art Teachers Show: O3 Gallery

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:50:12 +0000

Oxford’s O3 Gallery is hosting an exhibition of 26 pieces by those who teach art in the county, to adults or children. It provides an insight into the creative processes of the teachers and an opportunity to experience a rich and varied body of work executed to the highest standards.

High-tech key to secrets of the past

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:09:18 +0000

Anyone with a computer can fly about in time these days like a butterfly in air. For instance, I clicked Listed Buildings in the vicinity of my home the other day — and came across a Royal Palace that had flourished from the time of King John (1167-1216) until as late as 1614, in which Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, and Edward IV (1442-1483) probably first came across his future bride, Elizabeth Woodville, of which I had never before heard.

Peter Miko, Ugly Glass and other things: The North Wall, Summertown, Oxford

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:53:06 +0000

Peter Miko works in glass. Most of the work you see at the North Wall is not entirely typical, however. Generally, glass working is associated with celebrating the material’s natural qualities in some sense, the innately beautiful drama of its translucency, the reflections and meditations it sets up, and such like. Miko, Slovakia born, now living in Oxford and working in London at the Adam Aaronson Glass Studio, Earls Court, uses the small broken pieces of glass you find in any glass studio, the throwaway pieces, and makes something completely different from them. His are works that border on painting: glass reliefs constructed on plates of glass or canvas, using scraps of glass, poured molten glass, silicone and spray paint that look as though they are made without control. Whereas each is thought through and progress can be slow, says Miko. Working like this “makes me feel very free. It’s the same kind of expression as Jackson Pollock, but it’s not copying him”.