Bettina Von Zwehl

http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/

The lecture at the University this evening was different to any that I had attended previously during this series. Bettina van Zwehl studied at the Royal College of Art in London and spent time in Italy perfecting her craft. She has an interest in Art of the Renaissance period, and in particular she mentioned Piero Della Francesca. When I researched Renaissance Art last year, I found Piero Della Francesco's paintings to be an inspiration to me. The elegance and simplicity of his work and the silence that tells a story never ceases to amaze me.

Piero Della Francesca

Madonna El Porto

She also mentioned Irving Penn as one of her greatest inflences.

Bettina Von Zwehl has recently started a sixth month project at the V & A in London where she is working on miniature portraits. Her inspiration for the new work are the paintings by Holbein. This is a new concept for her as her work up until now has been exhibited on large prints. She works with a 5 x 4 Large Format Camera.

Jane Small

a watercolour painting by

Holbein c1540

                                                 With thanks to the V & A for this image

Von Zwehl showed her earlier portraits of to us of subjects listening to the music of an Estonian Composer Alena, children breathing in and out and babies of one year in profile. She is interested in how a human reacts to external stimuli, of isolating a moment of human experience, and she has a fascination with the "profile." Her intention at the V & A is to take a photograph of one of the employees at the Museum three times per week over the period of five months, and to examine the resulting images.

I enjoyed Von Zwehl's lecture, although I do not have the same fascination with the portrait as she does. I understood the concept behind her early work but the images seemed a little "static" to my eye.  As with many contemporary artists, unless the work is explained, it is very difficult to know what the artist is trying to convey. But the work she is carrying out at the moment was of interest to me. Miniature Portraits are something that you seldom see today and I thought that this was a great idea.