Star Work

Staff stars

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We asked some of our staff to choose a painting from the many held in our collection for this Star Works selection - including those on display and those currently in storage. Here are their choices!

The Piazza San Martino, Lucca by Bernardo Bellotto

I love this picture it's almost like you could walk down this street. Bellotto was Canaletto's nephew and you can see his influence in this painting. I love the play of light and the little conversations going on between the people gathered in groups. You want to know what's going on!

Lorna Sergeant - guide

Tate Wilkinson by Stephen Hewson

This painting makes me happy. He's a big bloke with a big gut and a big yellow waistcoat - he looks like Pickwick. He looks like he's got a few bob and he looks like he's happy about it.

Tony Dunnington - guide

The First, The Only One by John William Haynes

This painting is quite emotive - we're not sure what her background is, whether her husband has died or whether she's had a child out of wedlock and been abandoned.

The room looks quite poor, she can't even afford curtains, but her clothes are quite nice and it is a good crib - I feel like she's had wealth in the past and her family's disowned her. I also like it because it's unusual in being a round painting.

Hannah Savage - guide

Hogarth's Studio in 1739 by Edward Ward

I see more and more in this painting every time I look at it. Hogarth has painted Captain Thomas Coram who established the Foundling Hospital in London and the children have come from the hospital to look at the painting - Hogarth is standing behind the painting. I saw the portrait of Dr Coram at the recent Hogarth exhibition in London and was really excited to see it.

I like symbolism - I think about the globe, the carpet, the rich clothing of Hogarth (he was one of the Hospital Governors) and the little girl in blue, and the view out of the window.

The painting is so well executed. You hear about artists like Gainsborough, Reynolds and Hogarth; artists like Ward are less well known, but he too painted with great ability and skill.

Sue Nicholson - guide

The Wave by Roderic O'Conor

I love the way this is painted. We don't know where the artist is sketching it from. For a seaside picture you don't get a boat or a yellow sun in the corner, it's just waves and the sky. Children and adults all really love it. It reminds them of their holidays.

Griselda Goldsbrough - assistant curator for arts learning

Portrait of the Artist by Otto Muller

This appears to be a very simple picture and it looks as if it's been painted quickly. Muller's self portrait is restrained in comparison with the art of some of his Expressionist contemporaries. He looks directly at the viewer and depicts himself to the side of the composition, rather than in the middle. This allows him space to show the ghostly image of a face he's been working on. In effect this painting is not so simple after all, because it's a picture within a picture and a double portrait of artist and subject.

John Liles - guide

Winter Sea by Paul Nash (copyright Tate, London 2007)

This painting shows the sea off the Kent Coast. It is quite a dark painting but you still get the impression of waves breaking. I think it's bleak, but captures well the sea at night time, and Nash was a war artist so things were quite bleak for him. It's one of our most popular pictures.

Jennifer Alexander - assistant curator of fine art