2024 was so topsy-turvy I honestly haven’t really put my mind to reflecting on what I have achieved or experienced this year. To celebrate the end of 2024, new beginnings, and 10 years of Wording Art, I should acknowledge my major milestone of 2024, which was completing my PhD in art history!

I have shared at different points about my experience pursuing a PhD at NTU Singapore. It’s funny how time flies and I graduated in July 2024. Yet with all of the strange feels of post-submission, post-defence, and post-graduation, and moving on to a new chapter in life, it felt like I needed more time to finally share about being PhDone.

| Cover picture: Me staring at the wonderful shelves of books on British Art in Hatchards, Piccadilly, London |

My PhD Research on Angelica Kauffman: The Last Stages

Over the last 5 years, I have spent many hours thinking, researching, and writing about the Swiss-Austrian artist Angelica Kauffman. My PhD research focused on Kauffman’s self-portraits from her London period (1766–1781), considering how these images tell us about the ways she viewed herself as a professional female artist in late eighteenth-century London. That’s the one-line summary!

Writing up my dissertation in 2022-23 was both enlightening and frustrating. But that, to me, is really what writing is all about. Figuring out how to structure my chapters, subheadings, flow, which images should go where, titles… There was a lot to learn and experiment with, and I’m so glad I had an entire year all to myself just to focus on writing. It’s a rare experience to have dedicated time for writing, and to be given feedback on my dissertation by supervisors and a panel of examiners alike.

2024 started with me working on revisions on my dissertation, before prepping for an oral defence. I had to condense years of research and hundreds of pages into a 30-minute presentation, before fielding questions by the examiners. I think the word ‘defence’ is especially apt here, because at points it did feel like I had to ‘defend’ my arguments and ideas. My defence was held online, which I did not expect! It’s funny how so many events can now be held online in a post-covid world…

Two weeks after my defence, I flew to London to see the Angelica Kauffman exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, which you can also read more about in my blog post. It felt like the most fitting way to bring my PhD chapter to a close! Other than at the Royal Academy, I saw more of Kauffman’s works at the Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520–1920 exhibition at Tate Britain. I also visited the gorgeous, revamped National Portrait Gallery to view what is probably Kauffman’s most famous self-portrait from her London period.

Graduation and Moving On…

Luckily things went well, and I made it for graduation! It really was the best day~~

I think with the completion of the PhD, there’s a strange feeling of finding my footing again. After months of tracking my hours of writing every day, it felt like I needed to reset and find a new routine again. I’ve seen only a few people online acknowledge this post-PhD limbo — and it’s so real! At this point of writing, I’m so glad to have moved through this stage, and I have now started a new job. Perhaps a bit shockingly, it’s bittersweet to me that I might miss a bit of PhD life in some ways.

Guest Post & Podcast Episode

With that, I’m happy to bring my PhD chapter to a proper close in 2024. While I haven’t shared much of my actual research on this blog, I have had the opportunity to share about it on other platforms!

In June 2024, I wrote a guest post on Art Herstory about Angelica Kauffman and her works centred on art, music and poetry. In this post, I explore some of my new, personal favourites among Kauffman’s artworks. I didn’t discuss most of these images in my dissertation, so it was nice to have another platform to write about a different aspect of Kauffman’s oeuvre. I would love it if you go here to read my guest post Angelica Kauffman: Art, Music and Poetry.

In November 2024, I spoke on a podcast episode with High Impact Thesis, a platform that hosts a diverse selection of researchers from NTU Singapore. In this one-hour long episode, I talk about my research on Angelica Kauffman’s London self-portraits, as well as:
🏛 What led me into art history and my research topic on Kauffman
🎨 Kauffman’s motivations in moving to London in her twenties
👩‍🎨 Women artists in eighteenth-century London and how they were perceived then and now
🗽 Allegory, Muses, and the art of imitation
🖼 Kauffman’s practice of imitation in her self-portraits (like the one at the National Portrait Gallery pictured below), and the particular influence of Raphael

I would love it if you would like to listen to my podcast episode on Spotify at this link!

Certainly though, it’s not yet the end of the road for me and my research on Kauffman! After spending years reading, thinking, writing, and discussing her artworks, my interest and passion about Kauffman is still as strong as ever. Maybe this is the true sign of having completed a PhD — that you don’t really get tired of talking about a specialised subject again and again… And the best part is that I can now officially say that I’m a bona fide art historian! 😉

The post PhDone | My Research on Angelica Kauffman appeared first on Wording Art.

I think it goes without saying that I loved the show, and to me it’s worth 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. While I had seen a couple of Kauffman’s artworks before, it was amazing to see so much more in person (where I had only viewed them in books or online).

| Cover picture: Detail of Self-portrait at the Crossroads between the Arts of Music and Painting |

Note: Artwork titles are provided here according to those stated in the exhibition. Throughout my research, I’ve noticed that the titles of Kauffman’s artworks are regularly updated.

Before getting into the rest of this post, I also wanted to share about my guest post on the Art Herstory blog. If interested to read more about Kauffman from another perspective, have a read of my guest post titled ‘Angelica Kauffman: Art, Music and Poetry’ here!

Opening: Self-Portraits

The exhibition opens with three of Kauffman’s self-portraits, all dating to the 1780s. The highlight is her magisterial Self-Portrait in all’antica Dress, loaned from the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Italy. The word ‘all’antica’ means ‘in the style of the antique’ to evoke the fashions of classical antiquity.

Kauffman’s Portraits: 1760s-1770s

The exhibition follows a roughly chronological order, tracing Kauffman’s life and artworks produced throughout her long career. A few key details to know about her: Kauffman (1741–1807) was Swiss-Austrian; she spent her early years training as an artist in Italy, and moved to London in 1766.

One of Kauffman’s early portraits is the Portrait of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whose writings on classical Greek art and sculpture makes him one of history’s earliest art historians. As a young artist in her twenties, Kauffman began to make a name for herself with this portrait.

I loved seeing Kauffman’s portraits close up, so I include these photos of details of the paintings! Some of the details that stood out to me were Kauffman’s use of colours, and the varying textures of the fashions is just spectacular. My favourite among these is Portrait of Martha Cocks in Turkish Dress with Embroidery Frame!

Kauffman’s History Paintings: 1760s-1770s

Other than working in portraits, Kauffman was especially ambitious in pursuing the art of history painting. History painting is a genre where the subjects of painting are taken from classical texts, mythology, and biblical stories. Penelope, Cleopatra, and Rinaldo and Armida are examples of characters that feature in Kauffman’s choice of history paintings.

I loved seeing this pair of paintings that feature the same story of Armida and Rinaldo shown side by side. They belong to the collection of Kenwood House in London, but are usually displayed in different sections of the House. Seeing these two paintings together, it was so interesting to see the two main characters but also the two soldiers-onlookers appearing in the background once again…

Kauffman as a Royal Academician

The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1768, and Kauffman was included among the 36 founding members. We also know that Kauffman and Mary Moser were the only two female Royal Academicians among the 36. Based on this fact, it’s also so important that Angelica Kauffman is finally the subject of a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy in its long history!

Zoffany’s painting of The Academicians of the Royal Academy is now almost legendary, depicting the male Academicians in the setting of a life class (which never happened in real life), while the two women are shown in portraits hanging on the wall. Zoffany’s group portrait is one of a few works by other artists included in this Kauffman retrospective. I loved having the chance to finally see this famous work in person!

Kauffman’s portrait of her friend, and the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts, Sir Joshua Reynolds is stunning. It was only by seeing it in person that I could finally spot Kauffman’s signature along the bottom of the blank canvas situated behind Reynolds — it’s hard to detect in photos!

The Ceiling Paintings

Kauffman’s four ceiling paintings of Invention, Composition, Design, Colouring were commissioned by the RA in time for the opening of their new premises in Somerset House in 1780 (which is now the beautiful Courtauld Gallery). The paintings are now placed on the ceiling of the RA’s entrance foyer in Burlington House. But in this rare instance, the paintings of Design and Composition are exhibited on the wall! Invention and Colouring are currently on show at the (also excellent) exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920 at Tate Britain.

Wonderful to see these paintings up close instead of squinting up at the ceiling… Among the artworks pictured here, the ceiling paintings are the only paintings by Angelica Kauffman in the collection of the Royal Academy.

I also thought it was a nice touch to include Kauffman’s grisaille sketches of the ceiling paintings on the side. These sketches show how Kauffman initially worked out the compositions of her paintings.

But placing these grisaille sketches behind the glass frames also made them hard to see clearly… I had viewed these drawings two years ago at the V&A in their Prints and Drawings Study Room, and they are absolutely stunning (which these photos don’t manage to capture!).

This Self-portrait with Bust of Minerva is displayed next to the ceiling paintings too, which is an interesting choice! The self-portrait is dated to circa 1780–84, which means that Kauffman may have started on the painting while she was still in London until 1781, before settling in Rome for the rest of her life.

Kauffman in Rome: From 1782

The last section of the exhibition displays works by Kauffman made later in her career, after she moved to Rome in 1782. Based on the paintings we’ve already seen, it’s no surprise that Kauffman’s reputation as a well-known artist was secured.

This gem of a self-portrait also belongs to the collection of Kenwood House, and it’s so nice to see it included in this exhibition too! Kauffman depicts herself on the left as the ‘character of Design’, while the figure on the right represents the allegory of Poetry.

These are a few more of Kauffman’s history paintings from the 1790s, alongside one biblical picture depicting Christ and the Samaritan Woman. In the same room, the exhibition concludes with several gorgeous portraits!

Kauffman’s Portraits: 1790s

I especially love this portrait in the details of the sitter’s clothes. In this Portrait of Charles Brudenell-Bruce he wears a costume in the style of Van Dyck, evoking seventeenth-century fashions. The lace collar and the undulating lines of his coat are just so refined.

A highlight piece is also this Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton, as Muse of Comedy. Emma Hamilton can be likened as a celebrity of the late eighteenth century. Apart from being known for her beauty, she also developed her performances of the ‘Attitudes’, where she struck varied poses inspired by classical sculpture. Here Kauffman depicts her performing as Thalia, the Muse of Comedy.

Emma Hamilton remains a notorious, yet fascinating, figure of her time (due to her history of love affairs), and she is the subject of many portraits. While this portrait belongs to a private collection, elsewhere in London you will be able to see her at the National Portrait Gallery, Kenwood House and Tate Britain.

Self-portrait at the Crossroads between the Arts of Music and Painting

I was so excited to see this beautiful, massive self-portrait in person! Painted late in her life and career, Kauffman (in the centre) reflects on her early decision to pursue the path of painting (figure on the right) instead of music (figure on the left). The painting is exceptional because it combines the genres of history painting, self-portraiture, and allegory all in one complete image.

I think the large size of the painting also matters, as it is a sign of artistic skill. Reserving such a large canvas for Kauffman’s own self-portrait seems to show that this image was significant for her too.

Plus look at all those details! It was also a lovely surprise to finally realise that Kauffman included her signature on the coloured sash of her dress.

My absolute favourite artwork within this exhibition Angelica Kauffman at the Royal Academy of Arts would be the Self-portrait at the Crossroads between the Arts of Music and Painting. I may also be biased, but I especially loved seeing Kauffman’s self-portraits, then my next favourites are her portraits.

I wished I could spend even more time in the exhibition (I was inside for 1.5 hours!), but putting this post together makes me so happy that I viewed so many artworks by Angelica Kauffman all in one place at the Royal Academy, after so many years — it’s a surreal feeling! The exhibition closes today at the end of June, but I also bought the exhibition catalogue and a postcard of Self-portrait with Bust of Minerva as souvenirs! If the RA had printed a Kauffman artwork on a tote bag, I would have totally bought it too!

The post London Art | Angelica Kauffman at the Royal Academy appeared first on Wording Art.

And what a time to be there, while London prepped its streets for the epic Platinum Jubilee (and I left just one week before the holiday!). I was also so excited to see the gorgeous Big Ben, which has been freshly restored and the clock dials are now back to their original

blue colour!

I took hundreds of photos every day and the memories are still fresh in my mind. So I wanted to write all about it on my blog to relive all of the days! I will be sharing about my itinerary my style which is basically: art, museums and bookstores (plus libraries and archives).

In 3 weeks I went to these museums for my art and history side:

• The Courtauld Gallery
• The British Museum
• The National Gallery, London
• Royal Academy of Arts
• The Wallace Collection
• Tate Modern
• Kenwood House
• V&A Victoria and Albert Museum
• Tate Britain
• Imperial War Museum
• Natural History Museum

And these libraries & bookstores for my bookish side:

• The British Library
• Waterstones
• London Review Bookshop
• Daunt Books Marylebone
• The Notting Hill Bookshop

That’s a preview of what’s to come! I also very importantly, saw artworks by the artist that I’m researching, Angelica Kauffman, for the first time in person and they were absolutely beautiful. I can’t emphasise enough now how important it is to see art in person.

In the words of Wonder Woman in WW84: “It’s all art.” And that certainly applies to London. ❤️

Find more posts from my London Art Series at this tag!

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| Cover picture: Cao Fei, 浮槎 Fú Chá, 2020 |

Singapore Flyer – Whimsical Reality

2020 started with a trip to the Singapore Flyer to see the exhibition ‘Whimsical Reality’ featuring watercolour works by Ah Guo Illustration 阿果绘本. I’ve been following Ah Guo’s work for quite a long time, and I love his childlike, light-hearted illustrations of various Singapore scenes!

National Gallery Singapore – Chua Soo Bin: Truths & Legends

Spent a day out visiting National Gallery Singapore and went to see the understated exhibition of Chua Soo Bin’s portrait photography. I especially liked these photos of Wu Guanzhong sketching in the streets of London, Bangkok’s floating markets and at Singapore’s Bird Park (this should be Jurong Bird Park surely!) Click here to also see my review of the exhibition ‘Wu Guanzhong: Beauty Beyond Form’ at National Gallery Singapore from 2016.

National Gallery Singapore – Light to Night Festival: Invisible Cities

The Light to Night festival was also happening in January, and as always, it delivered a fun lineup of light installations and art skin projections. I also found it hilarious that one of Twardzik-Ching Chor Leng’s Five Stones was propped up above the bus stop outside Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall!

I’m not sure why this was here, but this setup of LINE’s Brown in a Merlion costume at Funan mall was so cute!!

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre – Huat Huat Land

A display of giant pineapples, mahjong tiles and murals on the rooftop of Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre for Chinese New Year! Huat Ah!

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre – SINGAPO人

SINGAPO人 is a permanent exhibition at SCCC that looks to discover Chinese Singapore culture. I really enjoyed visiting this and playing with all the interactive sections. There’s this game of ‘Would You Rather’, for example have Coffee or Tea, Eat Out or Eat at Home (as seen above) and after making your choice, it shows the poll percentage for each option!

Peeking into a small hole in a display to see a camera staring back at me!

Had to capture this drip tile from the old Nanyang University’s Administrative Building — especially as I’m studying at Nanyang Technological University now!

CB Summer

And then we hit pause — circuit breaker began in early April, classes went online, and it took a lot of effort to continue to study / work from home.

Over these few months, I also started to tune into art online (here are some of my recommendations!). Although there were also sadly a slew of exhibition cancellations, like the i Light festival, the Picasso and Matisse exhibition at National Gallery Singapore and the ‘Angelica Kauffman’ exhibition in London’s Royal Academy of Arts…

I’m currently researching Kauffman’s self-portraits and so I’d made travel plans to visit London and to see this exhibition — all cancelled! Ah well, so I made do with buying the exhibition catalogue. Here’s an image of Kauffman’s Self-Portrait with Stylus from the catalogue (excuse the colouring!), which is my favourite of all of her self-portraits! It belongs in a private collection so I really hope to have a chance to see it in an exhibition in future…

Asian Civilisations Museum – Fashion and Textiles Gallery

Ventured back out to see exhibitions again in August, and it felt like a grand affair! Dressed up again to view the new Fashion and Textiles, as well as Jewellery, galleries at Asian Civilisations Museum. The galleries will have a rotating display, and the Fashion and Textiles gallery currently features Chinese dress from the Qing (imperial wear) and modern periods (cheongsams). I thought the Fashion and Textiles gallery was surprisingly small!

National Museum of Singapore – Music For Everyone: Variations on a Theme

This solo exhibition of Song-Ming Ang’s work was first presented in the Singapore Pavilion of 2019’s Venice Biennale and had a re-showing at National Museum of Singapore. The title Music for Everyone ‘references a series of concerts organised by the then Singapore’s Ministry of Culture from 1971 to 1985’, and the exhibition overall also looks at music education in Singapore, like all those recorder music classes (so not for me)…

I especially liked Ang’s Manifesto for Bad Music, as I got quite into twentieth-century art manifestoes in class last semester!

Singapore Art Museum – Time Passes

Since Singapore Art Museum is currently under renovation, their exhibition ‘Time Passes’ is currently held at National Gallery Singapore. I thought the highlight work was Ashley Yeo’s intricate work of paper, which she makes using 3D printing.

In the gallery next door, ‘An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season’ is also showing at National Gallery Singapore. Both exhibitions are part of ‘Proposals for Novel Ways of Being’, a series of exhibitions and programmes made in response to COVID-19. Both exhibitions run until 21 February 2021.

Esplanade Tunnel – Combing for Ice and Jade

This is a solo exhibition of Kurt Tong’s work as part of the 7th Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF). ‘Combing for Ice and Jade’ tells the life story of Tong’s nanny (or majie) who became a ‘Comb Sister’ — ‘a community of women in Southern China who took a vow of chastity’ and left their hometowns to work and be financially independent. I liked the quiet, understated way of showing her life through various photographs, but I especially liked the video at the beginning of exhibition in which Tong discusses this seven-year project.

‘Combing for Ice and Jade’ is ongoing till 10 Jan 2021.

National Gallery Singapore – Georgette Chen: At Home in the World

The long awaited Georgette Chen retrospective is here! I enjoyed visiting this exhibition, and I will post about it in more detail in a separate post. In the meantime, I wanted to highlight this photograph of Chen painting Lotus Symphony en plein air (outdoors) in her friend’s garden full of lotuses. It’s nice to see a glimpse of the process and the final result situated next to the other.

‘Georgette Chen: At Home in the World’ is running for a long time until 26 September 2021.

ArtScience Museum – Margins: drawing pictures of home 

‘Margins: drawing pictures of home’ is also included in SIPF this year, and it’s a small exhibition featuring works by 15 contemporary photographers centred around Singapore as home.

My sister reminded me that we first saw this work in Hong Kong’s PMQ as part of detour 2015! While there were 1600 photographs there, the 12 photographs included here depicting the daily food choices for those living at the poverty line in different Asian countries still remains as poignant.

I liked the light humour of Hu’s People Mountain People Sea, a literal translation of 人山人海, which means a huge crowd in Chinese. Hu juxtaposes scenes of Singapore with ‘cutouts’ of the Old Master Q comic character, and I thought it was pretty fun!

My favourite from ‘Margins’ is Soh’s photographs of the last SS24 train to depart from Tanjong Pagar Railway Station (see my photos of the station at this link) before the railway line was officially removed.

‘Margins: drawing pictures of home’ is showing until 28 February 2021.

Gardens by the Bay: Christmas Wonderland’s Walk of Lights

Ending off 2020 with some festive cheer! I wanted to do another re-visit of Christmas Wonderland since this year’s Walk of Lights featured some new light attractions that have not been shown before! Loved all the lights and as always, the luminarie light installations (made all the way from Italy) are so gorgeous and impressive! Here’s to a brilliant 2021!

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