by queensbridge road (my bus laid down and died)

horsemouth had time to kill yesterday (so he walked across the seaside towns and went to the tate). 

after an extortionate coffee horsemouth found in the basement archives an exhibit on austiran emigree expressionist painter and photographer marie-louise von motesiczky. as an old lady she used to drive into hampstead to do her shopping in a little 3 wheeled car with her dog. an irish nurse would go ahead to clear the way and stop traffic.

her father was born (scandalously) in the natural history museum.

another ancestor was psychoanalysed by freud.

she was the friend/ patron/ unacknowledged second wife (effectively) of elias canetti. but when veza, canetti’s wife from the autobiographies dies, he marries another (and takes up with a young iris murdoch). she was a link back to the austria of beckmann and kokoshka,

horsemouth went to the blake room (but of course all the blake was still in the blake exhibit), what was there focused on samuel palmer and the ancients of shoreham. horsemouth particularly liked john craxton’s print of llanthony abbey (up near his parents). it was there he discovered that the incredible string band song lavengro is named after george borrows’ heavily fictionalised autobiography including much of gypsy life (horsemouth cannot find a version on you tube so this will have to do instead).

on his way there he spotted nigel henderson’s screen.



 later there was a free bowl of soup and a bread roll (thank you artistic youth) at a nearby art institution and some quite enjoyable advice on writing art reviews (that horsemouth has failed to make use of).