BARRY VENNING
TESTIMONIALS
Publications
Review of the Exhibition Catalogue, ‘Turner & the Elements’, 2012
“Venning…writes knowledgeably and stylishly about the artist's responses to water, and about how the flow, speed and erosive effects of the liquid served Turner as metaphors for the workings of the mind and the imagination. The catalogue is worth having for Venning's essay alone”.
- Eric Shanes, Apollo
Reviews of Turner: Art & Ideas
“This lively, prolifically illustrated survey illuminates the career of Britain's greatest artist in a host of ways. Deftly sketching in the political, social and artistic background to his career, Venning notes how Turner's humble origins made him far more receptive to radicalism than the country gentleman, Constable”
- Independent on Sunday
“ The book also has the enormous merit of providing all its readers with an emphatic demonstration of why Turner matters and why new generations of artists, scholars, and art lovers are impelled to return to his art.”
- Professor Sam Smiles, Turner Society Newsletter
Lecture feedback and reviews
Feedback for The Sincerest Form of Flattery
“Thank you most sincerely for your excellent lecture…We all thoroughly enjoyed your wonderful presentation and feedback from the evening has been most positive”
- ADFAS Pokolbin, Australia, 2015.
Review of The Turner Prize: its history and controversies at Te Papa Museum, Wellington, New Zealand
The lecture … was an account of previous winners and nominees since the competition began in 1984. It was loaded with jokes, anecdotes, and witticisms, and the audience in the near-full Te Papa lecture theatre responded well. An earthquake was felt during the lecture, but Mr Venning continued his presentation without pause.
- Paul Ordish, Newswire NZ, August 2013
Feedback for Picasso’s Guernica and the Spanish Civil War
“Thank you for a fabulous presentation of such a fascinating lecture yesterday evening. It seems to have been very warmly received all round”.
“So many members remarked about your gift for speaking in such an interesting way about an absorbing topic”.
- ADFAS Camden, Australia, August 2015