Last year I published a collection of 50 of my own imperfect snapshots of modern art works, taken over the years during my visits to art galleries and sculpture parks. Since then, I have managed to fit in a few more art trips, and I present here 30 more wonky and uncool snaps of works that I’ve seen and enjoyed. The format of this collection is broadly similar to that of my previous article. The artists are presented loosely in chronological order of their dates of birth, but with some changes to fit artists together and smooth out the overall narrative. This time there are no cheats – all are photos of original works that I’ve seen ‘in situ’ – but there is again one bonus photo.
As before, I’ve not restricted the number of works by individual artists, and also some photos depict more than one work (and artist). So altogether there are 34 works by 28 artists (one is a combined effort between two collaborators). Most are artists who weren’t in my first collection, but there are a couple of returnees. Their dates of birth range from 1874 to 1971, a slightly more modern collection than in my first article, but still no one under 55. Ten artists are women (a much higher proportion than last time), and two are non-white. Although I begin with figurative works, there is a definite bias towards abstraction – I know even more now what I like.
1. Andre Derain (1880 - 1954)
Collioure (1905)
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Painted during a stay in Collioure in Southern France with Henri Matisse, which saw the advent of Fauvism (I included a picture of the town by Matisse, painted during the same trip, in my first collection). This is the first painting by Derain that I have been able to photograph – more please.
2. john Duncan Fergusson (1874 – 1961)
La Terrace, Cafe d’Harcourt (1908)
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Fergusson was one of a group of four artists known as the ‘Scottish Colourists’, who were active in the early twentieth century. Each spent some time in France and were influenced by Derain and the Fauves. This picture depicts a cafe in Paris that Fergusson and other artists frequented. Fergusson in turn influenced a young self-taught painter from Fife named Jack Hoggan – who went on to achieve wealth and fame as the desperately kitsch artist Jack Vettriano.
3. Stanley Spencer (1891 – 1959)
Drawing of Hilda Spencer (1931)
4. Hilda Spencer (nee Carline) (1889 – 1950)
Drawing of Stanley Spencer (1931)
Modern One, Edinburgh
A pair of charming drawings that Stanley Spencer and his first wife Hilda made of each other in 1931. Spencer was a highly original artist, best known for his works on religious themes, but he also produced some strongly erotic pictures. Hilda was an accomplished artist in her own right, as her drawing of Stanley shows. Sadly, their marriage broke down the next year, and in later life Hilda lived with mental ill health.
Rene Magritte (1898 – 1967)
5. Threatening Weather (1929)
6. Representation (1937)
7. The Magic Mirror (1929)
Modern One, Edinburgh
I’m not in general a fan of surrealism, but Magritte was different in approach to the likes of Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, being more interested in playing with logic and language than in psychoanalytic influences. I’ve liked his works ever since a fine exhibition a few years ago at Tate Liverpool. These pictures at Modern One in Edinburgh encapsulate a couple of Magritte’s themes: depictions of objects in unfamiliar situations and the use of words within images, changing the meaning of both.
8. Laszlo Moholy-Nagi (1895 – 1946)
Sil 1 (1933)
Modern One, Edinburgh
Modern One is my kind of modern art museum, not afraid to show great pieces from the twentieth century without too much preaching. Hungarian Moholy-Nagi taught at the Bauhaus between the wars, and his art was influenced by Kasimir Malevich and Suprematism. This picture was painted on a new form of aluminium named silberit. I’m afraid its reflective surface has captured the photographer’s nose.
9. Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976)
Ritou (1936)
Fundacio Miro Mallorca
On a trip to Palma in Mallorca to see a major Joan Miro exhibition (see below), I saw this fine example of American artist Alexander Calder’s delicate mobiles, an art form he more of less invented, and which spawned a multitude of kitsch imitations on sale at garden centres everywhere. Calder and Miro were friends, and this is at Palma’s Miro museum.
Joan Miro (1893 – 1983)
10. Peinture II (1973)
11. Moonbird (1966)
12. Personage (1981)
Fundacio Miro Mallorca (and elsewhere)
Miro is becoming one of my favourite artists – I’ve even got a couple of T-shirts with his abstract images on them. In October 2025, I visited the ‘Paysage Miro: the Magic Spark’ exhibition, spread over four venues in Palma, Mallorca, where Miro lived and worked for the last thirty years of his life. The exhibition concentrated on works (abstract paintings, polished bronze sculptures, whimsical sculpted figures) made in Mallorca, when Miro was well established and having fun. These photos show representative examples.
13. Joseph Albers (1888 – 1976)
Homage to the Square R – NW IV (1966)
Modern One, Edinburgh
German-born Albers taught at the Bauhaus with Moholy-Nagi before fleeing to America in 1933. From 1950 he began a series of starkly modernist paintings named ‘Homage to the Square’, all in a similar form, and all experiments in the relationships between colours. Any readers who don’t like abstraction should leave this article now (if you haven’t already).
14. Willem de Kooning (1904 – 1997)
Two Figures in a Landscape (1967)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
The Stedelijk has recently replaced its fine minimalism room with an even finer abstract expressionist exhibition – at last I can see a roomful of my heroes. Dutch-born de Kooning’s work is generally on display at the Stedilijk, but he is now joined by…
15. Jackson Pollock (1912 – 1956)
The Water Bull (1946)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
From a group of paintings known as the ‘Accabonac Creek’ series, completed after Pollock moved to this area of Long Island in early 1946. Pollock regarded bulls as symbols of masculinity, natch.
16. Barnett Newman (1905 – 1970)
The Gate (1954)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
While de Kooning and Pollock’s work comes from the ‘action painting’ end of abstract expressionism, Newman is a ‘colour field’ painter, whose work embraces large regular slabs of colour with smaller lines running through them. I like both kinds of picture, though I find colour field a bit easier to follow.
17. Robert Motherwell (1915 – 1991)
New Amsterdam Painting (1966)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
Motherwell was the ‘brains’ of abstract expressionism, having studied philosophy at Stanford and art history at Columbia, and gaining a PhD from Harvard. Not sure how much his intellect comes across in this work however. It falls somewhere between action painting and colour field. It got its name after the Stedelijk bought it. At the time, Motherwell was married to…
Helen Frankenthaler (1928 – 2011)
18. Beach Scene (1961)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
19. Saturn
Modern One, Edinburgh
Despite being a generation younger than the original abstract expressionists, Frankenthaler was part of the movement from the early 1950s, promoted by the critic Clement Greenberg (with whom she was an item for five years). She married Robert Motherwell in 1958 (they divorced in 1971). She experimented with novel painting techniques, and was a big influence on the next generation of American abstract painting, pedantically named by Greenberg, ‘post-painterly abstraction’. Along with Frankenthaler, its practitioners included Kenneth Noland (whose work I snapped on a previous visit to the Stedelijk), and…
20. Morris Louis (1912 – 1962)
Gamma Mu (1960)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
Louis was largely mentored by Clement Greenberg and was influenced by Helen Frankenthaler’s approaches to painting. This canvas is one of a series known as ‘unfurled paintings’ that Louis produced in 1960 and 1961 – they became his swansong as he died of lung cancer the year after. I’m very drawn to its vivid colours and easily appreciated form. And so, we reluctantly leave abstract expressionism and move on to…
21. Agnes Martin (1912 – 2004)
Faraway Love & Happy Holiday (1999)
Modern One, Edinburgh
...minimalism. Only briefly, this time, and Martin did not regard herself as a minimalist, but saw her ethereal paintings as expressing emotion. These works are part of a series she produced near the end of her life, the titles of which aim to evoke happy memories from the past. They certainly promote contemplation.
22. Henry Moore (1898 – 1986)
Upright Motives nos. I, 2 & 7 (1955-6)
23. Robert Indiana (1928 – 2018)
Love (1966 - 1998)
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Seeing artworks in a sculpture park on a hot day is one of life’s more satisfying pleasures. This juxtaposition of Yorkshireman Henry Moore’s striking statues with one of pop artist Robert Indiana’s many versions of his iconic form ‘Love’ works perfectly.
24. William Turnbull 1922 – 2012)
Large Idol (1985)
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
In the 1950s, Scottish artist Bill Turnbull was one of a loose group of sculptors known as ‘the Geometry of Fear’, other members including Eduardo Paolozzi and Elizabeth Frink. His striking, simple forms were influenced by Constantin Brancusi and Alberto Giacometti and he became highly popular in the USA in the 1960s. This is another work that is at home in a sculpture park setting, and yes, as Baldrick might say, it does rather look like a thingy.
25. Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010)
Spider (1994)
Modern One, Edinburgh
Bourgeois was born in France and settled in the USA after her marriage. She was a prolific and well-regarded painter, sculptor and printmaker, but one suspects that posterity will remember her for her spiders, several of which are scattered between galleries and museums worldwide. The most famous, and largest example is ‘Maman’, first exhibited at Tate Modern, but arachnophobes will not be comforted to learn that there are many others.
26. Gillian Wearing (b1963)
The Garden (1997)
Modern One, Edinburgh
I’m generally not a fan of the ‘Young British Artists’ who came to prominence during the 1990s, and of whom Wearing was a leading member (she was the first woman to win the Turner prize, in 1997). I’m also not a fan of art photography, which, as I’ve noted before, looks to me just like photography. However, this shot has a degree of humorous charm (he said, pompously). The artist is second from the left.
27. Fiona Rae (b1963)
Look! Look! Look! (2006)
Es Baluard Museum, Palma, Mallorca
Back to abstract. Fiona Rae was also associated with the YBAs, taking part in the seminal ‘Freeze’ exhibition organised by Damien Hirst in 1988, which first attracted the attention of collector Charles Saatchi. She was nominated for the Turner prize in 1993. Her work concentrates on broadly abstract paintings that include more figurative symbols and images, sometimes derived from Photoshop. From her YBA roots she has firmly joined the establishment, becoming Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy.
28. Santiago Calatrava (b1951)
Palma Cathedral Sculpture (2007)
Es Baluard Museum, Palma, Mallorca
Es Baluard is a lovely little modern art museum in Palma, with featured artists and an interesting permanent collection. I know nothing about the creator of this work, other than that he is better known in Spain as an architect, but set in the grounds of the museum with the sea and cathedral behind, it makes a spectacular picture.
29. Rebecca Horn (1944 – 2024)
Three Graces in Blue (1993)
Es Baluard Museum, Palma, Mallorca
I got very excited when I first saw this work, thinking it was by the great American sculptor Roni Horn. Sadly no, though there are echoes of her style. Rebecca Horn was German, and this piece has adorned a courtyard at Es Baluard since it opened in 1993. I have to say it looks a little neglected, but lends itself to another summery photo.
30. William Kentridge (b1955)
Paper Procession II (2024)
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
The newest work in this collection. South African Kentridge makes art in many styles and media, but I’m most attracted to his large scale sculptures, which again look perfect in an outdoor setting.
Cecily Brown (b1969)
31. Armorial Memento (2019)
Modern One, Edinburgh
32. My Garden (2022)
The Hepworth, Wakefield
Cecily Brown, British born but long based in the USA, is an artist that critics love to hate – the insult ‘decorative’ may be readily applied to her paintings. Her glossy, de Kooningesque semi-abstract works are highly popular and attract high prices at auction. Well, I like de Kooning, so I like her too.
33 Julie Mehretu (b1970 - Painting)
34. Nairy Baghramian (b1971 – Frame)
TRANSpainting (seat) (2003)
Stedelijk, Amsterdam
While Cecily Brown’s work is derided by the critics, Ethiopian-born Mehretu’s abstract works are feted. This is one of a series of TRANSpaintings, produced on thin polyester mesh, so that they can be viewed from both sides. The frame was made by Iranian-German artist and architect Nairy Behramian. And with this, I conclude my descent into abstraction...
Bonus Photo
Communication Badges
Modern One, Edinburgh
This is hanging on a wall near the entrance to one of the galleries at Modern One. It isn’t an artwork – at least, I don’t think it is. I know which one I’d pick, though.
