Bath time | 25 March 2006

Three fine exhibitions are currently gracing the public galleries of Bath, and even though the new spa is shamefully late in opening, art-lovers are spoilt for choice. In fact, these shows are well worth a day trip from London if you live in town. Bath is a relatively easy hour-and-a-half’s journey from Paddington, and the rewards are considerable. Apart from the distinguished beauty of the city itself, all mellow Bath stone rising in proud tiers on the surrounding hills, this trio of shows provides an uncommon range of visual stimulation and entertainment. For those interested in the contemporary, the etchings and lithographs of Paula Rego make compulsive viewing, while a taste for Modern British art is piqued and satisfied by an excellent small display of Sickert’s work, focusing on his residence in the city. Meanwhile, at the other end of Great Pulteney Street, the Holburne plays host to an historical survey of great houses and their estates in the west of England. A nicely contrasted day’s viewing.

Sickert has been getting more attention recently with various shows of his prints, drawings and paintings (I’m thinking particularly of last year’s impressive touring exhibition Walter Sickert: ‘drawing is the thing’, arranged by Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery), and the publication of Matthew Sturgis’s exhaustive and well-received biography of the artist. Bath cherishes Sickert as one of its most famous former inhabitants, who not only spent the summers of 1917 and 1918 there (born in 1860, he was too old to fight in the war), but also retired to nearby Bathampton in 1938, where he spent the last four years of his life.

Artists don’t, of course, tend to retire, and Sickert continued to paint almost to the end of his life, with a superb example of his late style forming the centrepiece of this display.