Who wants to be an Art Critic?
Burlington House and Piccadilly
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Earlier this year, I joined a dozen other art-lovers for a week-long Contemporary Arts Summer School at the Royal Academy (RA). The course was run by Dr Tim Smith-Laing, lecturer and art critic. I wanted to learn more about contemporary art and the role of the art critic, principally because I studied Art History for my BA many moons ago, and I was wondering whether to direct some of my writing towards ‘place in art’.
Imagining a contemporary landscape, or interiorscape, I thought: how could I write about this in a creative way? what would I need to know about the artist? would it matter if the actual ‘scape’ was fictional or real? what type of audience would be interested in this?
Yes, I had a lot of questions. Tim is knowledgeable and experienced in the contemporary arts scene, and he answered many of them. He was candid about a lot of things, even the fees he gets paid to write articles for newspapers and journals such as The Daily Telegraph, Apollo, Frieze, and the Literary Review. I’ll not give numbers, but I can say that the fees varied from very little to just a tiny bit more, with newspapers at the low end, and art galleries, appreciating a professional in-depth article in their catalogues, at the higher end. Tim said that he had to supplement his income by teaching. It’s a familiar pattern isn’t it? And yet another salient reminder that writing is a difficult way to make a living.
The Royal Academy
The RA is situated in Burlington House, one of the earliest large private residences built on the north side of Piccadilly. It’s Piccadilly—not Piccadilly Road or Piccadilly Street, just Piccadilly—and it runs east-west through London from the busy junction we call Piccadilly Circus to the M4 and Heathrow Airport, then on into the west country. The street name comes from a house recorded in 1626, Piccadilly Hall, which belonged to Robert Baker. He was a tailor famous for selling collars—large broad collars of cut-work lace, variously spelled as piccadills, pickadills, or piccadillies. These late 16th and early 17th century english fashion items appear in many a portrait painting.
Burlington House
Building started on Burlington House around 1664 by Sir John Denham, a rather colourful character it seems. It was sold incomplete only a few years later in 1667 to Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington. The building went through various structural developments and changes of ownership until it was eventually taken over by the UK government in 1854. The RA took up residence in 1867; it operates as a charity, receives no direct funding from the State or the Crown, but leases the building from the Government for a peppercorn rent.
So, I have a few questions for you.
Do you like reading about art and artists?
Do you write for newspapers and magazines? If so, how does that go for you?
If you are a writer, do you see Substack providing an income for you now or in the future?
As always, I look forward to chatting in the comments.
Credits, References and Links
Photo above is my own, of Tim Smith-Laing at one of the Summer School sessions.
Read more about Burlington House…at The Society of Antiquaries, and The Geological Society.
Place Writing is more than just a newsletter publication, it’s a resource. I went into the archive and found these two posts about place and art, which I think you’ll enjoy. If they resonate with you, comments remain open so please add your thoughts to the discussion:
I love reading about art history; both fiction and nonfiction. The key takeaway is the art critic is paid about as well as the artists are paid; poorly. Who wants to get paid as an art critic is a different question than who wants to be one. What if there were a unified basic income and we could work at what sustains us in place?
I know people earn a healthy income from Substack but that’s not my motivation for being here. For now, I enjoy writing to some kind of discipline and posting on a monthly (almost) basis. I love the connection I get here with other writers. As for art, I love it but ‘know’ very little about it other than what I like. I have recently of ekphraesis I think the word is, writing inspired by looking at art and I think this could be a very useful stimulus for creative writing. Not done any yet mind!