Sofa Blog

Tues 02 Sept 2008

The Society Of Feline Artists London Exhibition Private View 2008

The twelfth annual Exhibition for The Society of Feline Artists is now on at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery in London and it features the work of Full and Associate members of SOFA. On show are approximately 300 paintings of cats in oil, acrylic, watercolour, pastel and etchings - making it the largest exhibition of cat art in the country.

The London show opened it's doors today for the private view. It was surprisingly well attended considering we were blessed with torrential rain. The show became busy very early in the day and everyone enjoyed the afternoon, the champagne and the chance to see so much high quality work on display. The show was opened in splendid style by our Patron David Grant. Don't mention the parrot!

Kay Young gave the welcoming speech and thanked Jillian and Ernest and the staff at Llewellyn Alexander for their hard work on our behalf.

The gallery prize was won this year by Karen Hunt  for her painting 'Stretch', congratulations to Karen.

The painting chosen for the Friends Prize Draw this year was 'Arthur' a painting by Dianne Whitney Searle.

There are lots of photos of the exhibition in the SOFA 2008 photo album. You can view them either as a slide show or as an photo album. The slide show uses flash and will show you much larger images. Great for seeing paintings on the wall.

As usual we couldn't photograph all the paintings as there are areas were we couldn't get to where the paintings were hanging and there are a lot of reflection too, especially those paintings hanging in the windows, but hopefully it will give those members who couldn't attend an idea of how it all looks.

The Photos

The Slide Show
You can see the photos as a slide show or as a photo album. The slide show is animated and has hidden controls that let you pause and move forward and backwards in the show (they show up as your mouse moves over them). The photos are large so you can get a better idea of all the paintings on the wall but it can take quite a time to load.
see the slide show

The Photo Album
For those who want a faster, less glitzy show, or who loose the will to live waiting for the slide show, the photo album is much smaller and faster.
see the photo album

Enjoy!

Thu 07 Aug 2008

SOFA 2008

It's that time of year again. This is the invite/catalogue for the 2008 Society Of Feline Artists show at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery in London. It runs for three weeks from the 2nd of September. See you there.

Wed 06 Feb 2008

FAB celebrates its 50th anniversary with a new book.

 The Feline Advisory Bureau is a charity dedicated to promoting the health and welfare of cats. This year is their 50th anniversary and among the celebrations FAB are launching a new book Essential Cattitude: an insight into the feline world.

In December 2006 FAB joined forces with top behaviourists in the UK to form the FAB Feline Behaviour Expert Panel to combine their expertise and work on the behaviour issues facing cats in our modern world. This new book is a result of their work and aims to help owners understand their cats and the stresses they might be under. To illustrate the book FAB asked cat loving artists and celebrities to contribute pictures of their favourite felines and several members of SOFA were among those who donated a piece of artwork to FAB.

Claire Bessant

FAB held the book launch at the Groucho club in SOHO, London. Many of the books contributors were there including several of our members. After an introduction by Claire Bessant there were excellent short talks by Peter Neville and Vicky Hall about feline evolution and behaviour, the authors will be familiar to cat to cat owners I'm sure. And Lynsey De Paul told the lovely story of Saffy, her beautiful Siamese cat.

Peter Neville

The book launch was a wonderful way to start FAB's 50th year. Fab also have a beautiful new rose variety named in their honour - The FAB at 50 rose and it appears on the front cover of Essential Cattitude.

You can find out much more about Essential Cattitude: an insight into the feline world and even buy a copy on FAB's web site www.fabcats.org.

The non SOFA contributors include Elizabeth Emanuel, Lynsey de Paul, Sir Roy Strong, Steve Leonard, Celia Haddon, Maureen Lipman, Alexander McCall Smith, James May, Dermot Murnaghan, Miriam Margolyes and Jane Burton.

The artists

The SOFA contributors include Paul Dyson, Marian Forster, Jacqueline Gaylard, Alex Johnson, Denise Laurent, Janet Pidoux, Celia Pike and Lois Sykes.