The Temple Gallery's Christmas Exhibition will go live on the 10th of November. It will include thirty Greek and Russian icons. These and the rest of our collection can be viewed here and in our gallery.
Icon Museum and Study Center
The Icon Museum and Study Center in Clinton, Massachusetts, goes from strength to strength under the direction of its new director Simon Morsink. On October 16th, the museum’s Greek Icon Gallery opened.
The institution is unique in America. We have nothing similar in the UK. Perhaps only the Ikonengalerei in Recklinghausen, Germany, is comparable.
We wish them well.
A Masterpiece of the Cretan Renaissance.
This rare and unusual Cretan icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness (Eleousa) was recently acquired by the Temple Gallery from the collection of the late Rev. Msgr. Michel Berger who was a consultant for Byzantine art at the Vatican Museums.
The work is of unusually fine quality and remarkable for the artist's handling of the gold, employing pseudo-Kufic decoration on the hem of the Virgin’s robe and abstract vegetal forms derived from Gothic art. Both these features were widely used by Renaissance masters with whom our painter was familiar.
Gurdjieff Conference at Harvard
My presentation Icons are Cosmic Diagrams at the “Legacy and Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff” conference at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, Cambridge, MA, USA can be seen here. It explores the possibilities for spiritual energies – both higher and lower – elaborated withinthe life of an individual person.
To read it, please click here.
Record Price for an Icon at Sotheby's
Attributed to 14th century Constantinople, this icon in an Old Master pictures sale on 3rd July at Sotheby’s fetched £825,500, ($1,111,228).
The icon is a rare survivor of the Palaiologan period. Its delicate detail and remarkable preservation offer a vivid glimpse into the last great chapter of Byzantine painting.
Mobile Icon Museum
This is the project of our friend Lynnette Hull. She is closely associated with the Prosopon Icon School in America and whose icons tour in her mobile museum. For more information, coming soon, click here.
“Icons for America mobile museum has a simple goal: to introduce Americans to the sacred art of the icon. Bringing the icon out of their traditional locale of homes, churches and museums, into the public square of festivals, schools, and universities, viewers have an opportunity to engage icons directly, many for the first time. We believe that every human being is made in the image of God. It is hoped that when human icons (each person) stands in front of these painted icons, they will reconnect with the image of God within themselves, extracting themselves from the chaotic, noisy external world, to recenter and perhaps even begin to recognize the Kingdom of God which is within.”
L’Oro Dipinto. Exhibition of Cretan andCretan-Venetian Icons, Doge’s Palace, Venice until 29 September reviewed by Peter Murphy.
Click here to read the review.
British Association of Iconographer
Recently exhibited over 100 icons in Westminster Abbey. Click here to read more.
Sr Esther, a sister at the Priory of Our Lady of Peace in Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire, founded the BAI in 1999. They publish a review several times a year and have an active and informative website, click here to visit it.
And finally, the V&A East
If you have a spare half day in London, the newly opened Victoria & Albert Museum’s storage display at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East Storehouse, V&A, Parkes St, London E20 3AX, provides a wonderfully interesting and entertaining experience. An entirely new concept for access to museum objects. Click here to view their website.