Chichester: Frida, Diego, Dogs, Pork Pies

Last weekend Andy and I had a day out in Chichester to see the Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery. As a predictable Frida fangirl, I already had a pretty good knowledge of her and Diego’s relationship but this is the first exhibition I’ve seen showing their work together and looking at them as a couple.

The small but perfectly formed exhibition fills three rooms, with the first containing Diego’s work and the other two focussing on Frida – clearly she’s the better of the two, right? All the works in the exhibition are from the Gelman collection – Jacques and Natasha, who had an enormous amount of Mexican art and who were good friends of Frida and Diego. Both of them painted Natasha actually, and the portraits are on display (and also here and here).

I might be biased as a fangirl but I thought it was a cracking little exhibition and the observations it highlights are interesting – particularly the contrast between Rivera as a socialist hero who painted crowd-pleasing political pieces vs Frida as a feminist icon whose work was intensely personal.

Negatives? Loud HEATHENS walking around talking about Frida’s eyebrows. I like galleries to be silent and while I know that’s partly me being a miserable old bastard, if you are going to talk it should at least be about the art, not the artist’s body hair. Anyway… It’s been extended until 9 October so there’s still time for you to go.

Pallant House is a great little gallery too, with a really good restaurant and sunny patio. We didn’t look at the permanent exhibitions, but it’s definitely a gallery I’ll go back to.

While in Chichester we also saw a couple of vintage shops, but the only place we actually spent any money was Steamer, which is a slightly more chi-chi-Chichester version of Lakeland. Dreamy.

We also found a good real ale pub, because what is a day out without a couple of pints and a pork pie? If you’re ever in the area and in need of a good place to drink you have to go to the Park Tavern opposite the priory. It has an awesome bull dog, nice pints and awesome food. It also has an amazing selection of midcentury glasswear, but who gets excited about things like that, right?