On the wonder of Wonderful Things

Sitting in my sitting room is a comfort of cushions awaiting their moment in the spotlight. I have invested in a super duper new lens for my camera so that they will appear to maximum advantage. I have practised taking pictures. I have styled them and restyled them and unstyled them, tried this combination and that, let them lie around artfully or marshalled them with military precision. And yet… and yet it is not going right. I am not quite sure what right is but it is definitely not going. Argh! There is nothing to do but to leave it for the moment. I decide to go and see how it should be done.

Having duly bought a ticket I head off to the Victoria and Albert Museum to the exhibition of work by photographer Tim Walker. Once through the door, you enter his fantastical and whimsical world, populated by the beautifully strange and the strangely beautiful. I felt a little like Alice after she had passed Through the Looking Glass, surrounded by multi-coloured cats, over-sized dolls and everyone in elaborate fanciful costumes, but without all the attendant frustrations, irritations and annoyances she experienced. Instead, it was wonderful in the true sense of the word, inspiring delight, pleasure and admiration.

On his wanderings through the V&A’s vast and varied collection, Tim Walker happened across objects and images that captured his imagination, from movie stills to delicate Mughal paintings, to intricately embroidered boxes, to the shrouds used to cover and conserve cloth. I wandered from room to room, and back again, fascinated, enthralled, beguiled by the alchemy of things old remade new in another medium, each with a contemporary resonance.  I was inexplicably struck by the size of Dame Edith Sitwell’s feet. And perhaps more understandably by the reimagining of Aubrey Beardsley’s prints, for the first art book I bought many years ago was a compendium of his work, his swirling, delicate lines inspiring my one and only tattoo.

I left eventually, my head abuzz with ideas for my own photography. I am planning another visit for I am sure that there is much I have missed. It was truly a wonder of Wonderful Things.

Tim Walker: Wonderful Things is on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 8 March 2020. Do go if you possibly can.