Annika Hall Guides

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Annika Hall Guides

Guides you to beautiful treasures on offer in London’s museums and galleries, with the V&A as the favourite place Our tours are for everyone.
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UNLOCKING LONDON’S GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS
Combining world renowned permanent collections with ever-changing exhibitions and chic restaurants, London’s museums and galleries are a smart, modern and vibrant part of the city’s culture. Annika Hall Guides tours are the best way to enjoy them. If you’re new to London or just visiting, we’ll really open up the city and provide one of the highlights of yo

ur holiday. If you live nearby, why not book a tour as a family treat, or to keep your house guests entertained? If you’re interested in a particular aspect of art or history, you can explore it in depth with one of our tours. If you’re looking for a memorable evening’s entertainment, you can book a guided tour with friends followed by a drink or meal in the museum restaurant. If you’re searching for a fabulous birthday gift for someone that already has everything, a tour makes a present with a difference. And if you’re planning a trip to foreign lands such as Egypt, India or Turkey, you might want to brush up on your local culture with a tour of the British Museum or V&A. In short, there are lots of reasons to experience our tours. We’ll help you discover the wealth of beautiful treasures and fascinating must-see collections on offer in London’s museums and galleries.

29/04/2024

King's Cross - from Seedy to Design Haven - https://mailchi.mp/1fcac82005aa/kings-cross

16/04/2024

There are still some spaces left on Friday’s Nine Elms to Battersea Power Station tour starting at 11am. This is the incredible sky pool located opposite the American Embassy in Nine Elms, an area that has changed completely in the last 10 years. Please contact me if you would like to know more. Hope you can make it!

13/04/2024

What is happening around Battersea Power Station? - https://mailchi.mp/bc138748e775/nineelmswalk-13747731

18/03/2024

So fascinating to learn more about Indian chintz. This is a detail from an early 18C palampore or bed cover made in the Coromandel Coast in India.

Chintz is cotton that is not block printed. Hand drawn and then dyed with mordant or resist. To make it look shiny it was burnished with a shell or beaten with a wooden mallet.

In the latter half of 17C people (including Samuel Pepys) loved these bright, relatively cheap, practical (could wash, colour sometimes even better afterwards) compared to dull, heavy wool, linen and difficult to care for silk (for the rich). At the time of Charles II it became fashionable among all social classes, first time that high and low social classes wear the same type of clothes.

There is no free lunch….naturally the Spitalfields silk weavers oppose this fashion and mob parliament. A new law bans imports, but then the chintz is smuggled and a second law even bans the wearing of chintz!

Totally understandable that people loved these beautiful fabrics!

Enjoying the research for my V&A Favourites tour.

21/11/2023

Whenever I prepare for a tour at the National Portrait Gallery I’m intrigued by this 1913 painting which is a self-portrait by Dame Laura Knight with model Ella Louise Naper. The excellent art lecturer gave a wonderful presentation about the artist the other day. I learned so much, for example that as a female student at art school in the 1880s, Knight had been banned from making life-drawings of n**e models. When the portrait was made Knight was a successful artist and could presumably afford to pay the model. The artwork was considered shocking at the time. Not only is she a female artist but she is also casually dressed. Other female artists had depicted themselves working in an elegant dress.

Knight was brought up in poverty by a single, art teacher mother. They lived on “tea and porridge”. Knight was the youngest ever to be admitted to art school, the first woman artist to be knighted, first to become a full member of the Royal Academy and the first woman to have a solo show there. However, it was only when she was in her 90s that she was allowed to attend an RA dinner. Contemporary with Picasso. When in her 70s she decided to paint the 1946 Nuremberg Trial. So interesting, need to include this picture in my next NPG tour.

12/11/2023

Discover my Nordic wild strawberries at the V&A - https://mailchi.mp/d712484ebade/scandinavian-design-13577223

31/10/2023

Another interesting evening walk. This time in the City of London with all its varied architecture. We were lucky to have Peter, our favourite London Walk guide, again.

19/10/2023

Old and new, trendy Clerkenwell - https://mailchi.mp/ecb60870c534/clerkenwell-walk

11/10/2023

The National Portrait Gallery by night - https://mailchi.mp/ed636aa2c106/the-national-portrait-gallery-by-night-13573723

24/09/2023

Autumn Tours from Nine Elms to the V&A - https://mailchi.mp/8ff8225dc713/new-this-autumn-13570987

15/09/2023

You’re welcome to the next Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station tour that takes place October 3rd between 11-1pm. Please contact me if you’d like to join

30/04/2023

What is happening around Battersea Power Station? - https://mailchi.mp/0db40a813401/nineelmswalk-13540463

15/04/2023

Hope you received the invitation to my family friendly V&A discovery tour on Saturday April 29th. If you didn’t but would like to come please let me know. Hope you can make it!

15/01/2023

What is happening around Battersea Power Station? - https://mailchi.mp/c2b0cad104d2/nineelmswalk-13513207

27/11/2022

Christmas Pop-Up in aid of Sarcoma UK - a cancer charity - https://mailchi.mp/540f9d31d09d/fulham-architecture-and-history-walk-12346135

16/11/2022

What is happening around Battersea Power Station? - https://mailchi.mp/be4ad209b2fc/nineelmswalk-12137771

04/11/2022

V&A Favourite Objects - https://mailchi.mp/dceae6727be7/my-favourite-objects-in-victoria-and-albert-museum

13/10/2022

What is happening around Battersea Power Station? - https://mailchi.mp/0c962912e449/nineelmswalk-12129367

04/09/2022

Tour of Number One London - Apsley House - https://mailchi.mp/d90b1d695da0/tour-of-apsley-house-11821767

12/06/2022

Wild Strawberries - pop-up event - https://mailchi.mp/953d14339cfb/pop-up-sale-of-wild-strawberries

10/06/2022

Another stunning colourful exhibition by one of my favourite ceramicists, Danish-Swedish artist Merete Rasmussen at the Pangolin Gallery in the interesting Kings Cross area. The show included a piece in bronze made using the lost wax method. Apparently Pangolin has access to a bronze foundry. 2022 ceramics pieces with coloured slip p.1 Blue Progression, p.2 Expanding Orange, p.3 Sinuous Blue and in bronze also made 2022 is p.4 called Endure. Merete has contributed to one chapter in my book Wild Strawberries.

06/06/2022

Courtauld’s Munch exhibition is a little gem and really thought provoking. It includes early works not seen in this country before. Makes you understand a bit better his trajectory from Impressionist inspired to his well-known style with rich and moody colours. Good examples to see the development - starting with p.1 a picture of his sister Inger on the Beach from 1889 showing the fusion of her emotional state and the surroundings using essential shapes (stones) and colours.

Interesting to contrast his 1890 Spring Day on Karl Johan (p.2) in shimmering colours, bright light in a technique inspired by French Impressionists including Pissarro (Munch even got the nickname “Bizzarro” by critics) with his 1892 painting Evening on Karl Johan (p.3), depicting almost exactly the same place but in a totally different mood. What a difference!

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