I discovered this delightful book, and the artist who wrote it, when I was browsing recently in Hatchards in Piccadilly. This bookshop has to my mind the best art department of any in London and has an added bonus of knowledgeable, helpful staff. Strange Weather was written to accompany an exhibition of the artist’s then recent work put on in late 2024 by her London gallery, Browse & Darby. The works in the exhibition and the catalog were completed mostly around the time of the pandemic and immediately after, and the title refers, as the artist says, “to the natural climate and the political weirdness of pandemic period, the fear, isolation – and the occasion euphoria triggered by nature”.

I wish I had seen the exhibition. The paintings and drawings in the book, though beautiful, are small. The landscapes and nature paintings, made in London, France, and Scotland, are especially lovely. Strangely impressionistic and precise at the same time, the oil paintings of trees and wildflowers speak to the resilience of the natural world in the face of the pandemic and its imperviousness to it. Eileen Hogan is also a portraitist and a couple of examples of commissions (Alan Rusbridger, Justin Welby) are included here, as are some works resulting from her appointment as the official Coronation artist.