The Reading Paintings Podcast

Still Life and Wedding Photo

Introduction
In this the third part of David and Harry's trip to the Royal Academy of Arts they look at two more of Kerry James Marshalls work. We invite you to view the image while listening.  Please click on the paintings title to go to an image of the work.
Black Painting
Still Life and Wedding Photo
Kerry James Marshall biography, part 3
Beyond painting, Marshall works in drawing, printmaking, collage, and installation. His graphic works often explore similar themes but with a sharper emphasis on line, symbolism, and mass-media aesthetics. Across all media, his practice is underpinned by rigorous research into art history, Black cultural history, and critical theory. Marshall has frequently spoken about the responsibility of artists to understand the traditions they inherit—and to intervene in them thoughtfully. As a teacher, lecturer, and public intellectual, he has shaped conversations about representation, value, and power in the art world. By combining technical mastery with conceptual clarity, Marshall has reshaped contemporary painting and expanded the possibilities of what historical art can be—and whom it can serve.
Credits
Content and creative lead: David Johnson and Harry Baxter
Producer: Ian Rattray
Audio production: Clear Voice Enterprises
 
Our thanks to the Royal Academy of Arts for allowing the recording of this episode of Reading Paintings.
Disclaimer
It is not always possible to find a commons licenced image.  Therefore,  any links to external websites are the opinions, views or expressions of the website host or profile holder.  Any images on such websites are the property of the  website host or profile holder.

School of Beauty

Introduction
In this second part of three episodes, David and Harry continue to explore the work of Kerry James Marshall at the Royal Academy of Arts . We invite you to view the image while listening.  Please click on the paintings title to go to an image of the work.
School of Beauty, School of Culture
Kerry James Marshall biography, part 2
Kerry James Marshall is best known for large-scale figurative paintings that place Black subjects at the centre of scenes traditionally reserved for white figures in European and American art history. His figures are often painted in a deep, opaque black, a deliberate aesthetic and conceptual choice. By pushing blackness to an extreme, Marshall challenges assumptions about beauty, representation, and visibility, forcing viewers to confront how race operates visually and ideologically within his paintings. Text frequently appears in Marshall’s work, guiding interpretation while complicating meaning. His use of language underscores his belief that images and words together shape historical memory.
Credits
Content and creative lead: David Johnson and Harry Baxter
Producer: Ian Rattray
Audio production: Clear Voice Enterprises
 
Our thanks to the Royal Academy of Arts for allowing the recording of this episode of the Reading Paintings podcast.
Disclaimer
It is not always possible to find a commons licenced image.  Therefore, any links to external websites are the opinions, views or expressions of the website host or profile holder.  Any images on such websites are the property of the  website host or profile holder.

Knowledge and Wonder

Introduction
This month David and Harry visit the Kerry James Marshall, The Histories exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London.  This is the first of 3 parts exploring the artist’s work. We invite you to view the image while listening.  Please click on the paintings title to go to an image of the work.
Knowledge and Wonder
Kerry James Marshall biography, Part 1
Kerry James Marshall is one of the most influential contemporary painters working today, renowned for a practice that confronts the historical absence of Black figures from Western art. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and raised in Los Angeles, Marshall came of age during the civil rights movement. This social and political context profoundly shaped his understanding of art as a tool for cultural visibility, historical correction, and political agency. A defining feature of Marshall’s practice is his sustained engagement with the canon of Western art. He draws on the compositional strategies, formats, and genres of Old Master paintings, while reworking them to include Black subjects who were historically excluded.
Credits
Creative lead and contents: David Johnson and Harry Baxter
Producer: Ian Rattray
Audio production: Clear Voice Enterprises
 
Our thanks to the Royal Academy of Arts for allowing the recording of this episode of the Reading Paintings Podcast.
Disclaimer
It is not always possible to find a commons licenced image.  Therefore, any links to external websites are the opinions, views or expressions of the website host or profile holder.  Any images on such websites are the property of the  website host or profile holder.

Self Portrait, Vincent Van Gough and The Card Players, Paul Cézanne

Welcome back to our third podcast at the Courtauld Gallery in Central London. 
In this episode David and Harry look at 2 paintings: Vincent Van Gough’s Self Portrait (with bandaged ear), 1882, and Paul Cézanne’s The Card Players, 1895.
 
We invite you to look at the image while listening. Please click on the artist name to view the image.
 
Vincent Van Gogh - Self Portrait (with bandaged ear, c.1889
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose intensely emotional work and bold use of colour made him one of the most influential figures in the history of Western art. Born in Groot-Zundert in the Netherlands, Van Gogh struggled from an early age to find direction, working variously as an art dealer, teacher, and lay preacher before committing himself fully to art in his late twenties. Van Gogh was largely self-taught, developing his skills through persistent drawing and close study of other artists. In 1886 he moved to Paris, where he encountered Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painters. Exposure to brighter palettes, broken brushwork, and Japanese prints transformed his style, leading him to experiment with vivid colour and expressive line. In 1888 Van Gogh relocated to Arles in southern France, hoping to establish an artists’ community. However, his mental health deteriorated, culminating in a breakdown during which he famously mutilated his ear following an argument with Paul Gauguin. Despite producing over 2,000 artworks in just a decade, Van Gogh sold very little during his lifetime and relied heavily on financial and emotional support from his brother Theo. In 1890, aged 37, Van Gogh died from a gunshot wound, widely believed to be self-inflicted. His reputation grew rapidly after his death, and today his work is celebrated for its raw honesty, emotional depth, and lasting impact on modern art.
 
Paul Cézanne - The Card Players, 1895
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was a French painter whose radical approach to form and structure laid the foundations for modern art. Often described as the bridge between Impressionism and Cubism, Cézanne transformed traditional ways of representing space, influencing generations of artists in the twentieth century. His early works were dark, thickly painted, and emotionally intense, reflecting the influence of Romanticism and Realism. In the 1870s, Cézanne worked alongside Impressionist painters such as Camille Pissarro and adopted brighter colours and outdoor painting. However, he soon diverged from Impressionism’s focus on fleeting effects of light. Cézanne sought something more enduring, famously aiming to “make of Impressionism something solid and lasting.” He developed a methodical approach, constructing forms through repeated brushstrokes and reducing nature to cylinders, spheres, and cones. His still lifes, particularly those featuring apples, challenge conventional perspective, subtly shifting viewpoints to emphasise the act of perception. After his death in 1906, Cézanne’s influence became profound, shaping the development of Cubism through artists such as Picasso and Braque. Today, Cézanne is regarded as one of the most significant figures in Western art, revered for redefining how painting could represent the world.
 
Credits:
Podcast content and founders: David Johnson and Harry Baxter
Producer: Ian Rattray
Audio production: Clear Voice Enterprises.org
 
Our thanks to the Courtauld Gallery and their staff for their co-opperation and access to the described art works.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Édouard Manet

Welcome back to the Reading Paintings podcast.
In this second episode from the Courtauld Gallery in Central London David and Harry look at Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882.
 
We invite you to look at the painting while listening.  Please click on the artists name to go to an external webpage of the image.
 
Édouard Manet - A Bar at the Folies-Bergére, c.1882
Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was a pivotal French painter whose work bridged the gap between Realism and Impressionism, fundamentally reshaping the course of modern art. He painted scenes of contemporary life—cafés, music halls, city streets—using bold contrasts, flattened forms, and visible brushwork. Despite frequent rejection by the official Paris Salon, Manet became a central figure in avant-garde circles. He was friendly with Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and other emerging Impressionists, and while he influenced their approach to light and subject matter, he never fully adopted their outdoor, spontaneous techniques. Manet preferred studio work and sought recognition from official institutions, believing in reform rather than rejection of tradition. In his later years, declining health limited his mobility, yet he produced some of his most subtle and complex works, including A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882), a masterful exploration of modern urban experience and visual ambiguity. Manet died in Paris at the age of 51, but his fearless challenge to artistic conventions secured his legacy as one of the founders of modern painting.
 
Credits:
Podcast content and founders: David Johnson and Harry Baxter
Producer: Ian Rattray
Audio production: Clear Voice Enterprises.org
 
Our thanks to the Courtauld Gallery and their staff for their co-opperation and access to the described art works.

Jockeys Before the Race, Edgar Degas

Welcome to the Reading Paintings podcast first episode! 
In this series David and Harry visit the Courtauld Gallery in Central London where they look at 3 paintings.  In this first episode they look at Edgar Degas’s Jockeys Before the Race c.1879 which is on lone from the Barber Institute of Fine Art in Birmingham.
 
We invite you to look at the painting while listening.  Please click on the artist name to open a link to an external webpage of the painting.
 
Edgar Degas - Jockeys Before the Race, c.1879
Edgar Degas was a French painter, draftsman, sculptor, and printmaker, born in Paris in 1834. Degas received formal training at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he absorbed the classical tradition, studying the old masters with particular admiration for Ingres, whose emphasis on line and structure left a lasting mark on his work.  Although often associated with Impressionism, Degas always considered himself a realist. He was fascinated by modern urban life and devoted much of his career to observing people at work or rehearsal. His most famous subjects include ballet dancers, laundresses, milliners, café performers, and racehorses—figures captured in moments of movement, concentration, or fatigue rather than idealised beauty. Degas was an innovator in composition, frequently using unexpected viewpoints, cropped figures, and asymmetrical arrangements inspired partly by photography and Japanese prints. He worked across many media, including oil paint, pastel, charcoal, wax, and bronze. In later years, as his eyesight deteriorated, he increasingly turned to pastel and sculpture, modelling expressive, tactile forms. Degas died in Paris in 1917, leaving behind a body of work that bridged classical discipline and modern experimentation, and permanently reshaped how artists depict movement, space, and everyday life.
 
Credits:
Podcast content and founders: David Johnson and Harry Baxter
Producer: Ian Rattray
Audio production: Clear Voice Enterprises.org
 
 
Our thanks to the Courtauld Gallery and their staff for their co-opperation and access to the described art works.

Reading Paintings Introduction

Hello and welcome to the Reading Paintings podcast introduction.  My name is David Johnson and I'm a blind artist, and with me is my good friend Harry Baxter who is a sighted artist and audio describer.  This is a short introduction that shares our concept of the podcast with you.  We do hope that you give our podcast a listen and let us know what you think.