This is not for the faint hearted, though if you manage to overcome this aspect, you are up for an enjoyable trip through approximately ten rooms of exhibition space.

All told, I found myself puzzled, challenged and pleased.  And I’m hoping the one lady I overheard saying ‘Ohh, that’s disgusting!,’ came round to the fun side of it. For though some of the paintings, I found myself wondering, ‘How did she hold that pose for so long without feeling slightly exposed?’, it wasn’t about the ugliness or lewdness of it, rather it was with awe for the model and the talent of the artist.

Brief highlights

1. The exquisite detail of inflamed skin under the breasts of ‘Big Sue’
2. The paintings of his mother
3. A beautiful painting of a woman, I think it was produced in the late 50s or 60s (somewhere positioned in either rooms II or III). It isn’t as textured as his later work, and the model appears calm and at peace. You feel (well, I felt) comforted by it.
4. After the ¾ hour we spent (thank you Nina for suggesting that we should go) prowling through the portraits, I was spurred to learn a bit more about the artist, the exhibition and his models…so did just that, by hot footing it onto Google later that evening.

As we both established via my last review – I’m definitely not an art critic – so maybe this makes it easier to enjoy what’s hanging in front of me…