26th February 2025
John Wyver writes: On Sunday 26 February 1939 Sight and Sound was a studio 'bee' hosted by Sir Kenneth Clark, youthful director of the National Gallery known to friends and peers as ‘K’. Seated in a wide semi-circle with
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1st June 2021
John Wyver writes: Having yesterday introduced our new film Coventry Cathedral: Building for a New Britain and promised a series of posts about the project, today I begin with a detailed discussion of just one section
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1st May 2020
John Wyver writes: Yesterday was #MuseumFromHome day, which was co-ordinated as part of the very welcome Culture in Quarantine initiative from BBC Arts. Developed alongside the Museums in Quarantine films, two of which I wrote about
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29th April 2020
John Wyver writes: On a Sunday evening in early August 1960 the esteemed art critic and cultural mandarin Kenneth Clark (knighted at the time, but not yet elevated to the peerage) hailed television viewers from a bench in the empty
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21st May 2017
This week's selection of links to articles and one video that have attracted my eye and ear, with my thanks to those who pointed me towards them. And just for a change, let's ignore the idiocies of the public world
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24th January 2017
Although it was published just over a fortnight ago I don't want to let pass without comment a slightly thoughtless Sunday Times article about John Berger and arts television by Waldemar Januszczak. In 'A murky way of seeing' (free registration required) the
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1st November 2016
The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently unveiled an exciting, extraordinary and exemplary archival project, 'Exhibition history', that is putting online for free and unrestricted access thousands and thousands of installation photographs, press releases and - most
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19th August 2016
So for those of you who have even just a passing interest in films about the arts, this is GREAT. The online service BFIPlayer today launches The Arts on Film, a collection of more than a hundred feature
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9th August 2014
The Tate Britain exhibition Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation closes tomorrow, Sunday 10 August. I remain thrilled to have contributed to this by curating the television extracts and writing a catalogue essay about the television programmes that Clark made for ATV
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21st May 2014
Tate Britain this week has opened the exhibition Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation, which runs until 10 August. There is no sense that I can be impartial about the show, given that I contributed by curating the television
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