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Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece
National Gallery, London Until 26th January 2020 When it comes to art exhibitions, I consider myself something of a traditionalist. Words such as ‘digital’, ‘immersive’ and ‘interactive’ used in conjunction with ‘exhibition’ usually make me wince. However, in the Curator’s Talk for Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece at The National Gallery (https://youtu.be/7Yh5Lu6a1YU), Dr Caroline Campbell…
Read MoreFrida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up
Until 4th November Victoria & Albert Museum Like many others, I have a soft spot for Frida Kahlo. I admired her work as a teenager and became fascinated with her brutally honest, dream-like paintings. As a result of her deeply personal work and the physical and mental turmoil she lived through, we get a…
Read MoreRodin and the Art of Ancient Greece
Until 29th July 2018 British Museum Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917) may have been a ‘modern’ man but it is clear from looking at his sculptures that he was intensely inspired by the past. He said ‘Antiquity is my youth’, betraying a deeply rooted respect and admiration for the ideas and aesthetics of Ancient civilisations….
Read MoreA Pre-Raphaelite Collection Unveiled: The Cecil French Bequest
Until 3rd June 2018 Watts Gallery, Compton After originally coming to London as an aspiring artist Cecil French (1879-1953) found his niche as a writer, poet and, perhaps most significantly, as a collector. With a taste for Romantic art the collection French amassed focussed on the Pre-Raphaelite painters, the majority of which are by his favourite artist Edward…
Read MoreReflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites & Murillo: The Self Portraits
Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites – until 2nd April 2018 The National Gallery, London At the heart of this exhibition is a painting which is often perceived to be shrouded by an air of mystery. The Arnolfini Portrait, to use its most common name, was painted by Jan van Eyck in 1434. We…
Read MoreAll Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life
28th February – 27th August 2018 Tate Britain Going into this exhibition I wondered what the overriding experience would be from looking back over 100 years of art through a very select number of artists. Expressions of their inner world and responses to the world around them is a theme of constant interest for us…
Read MoreCharles I: King & Collector
Royal Academy of Arts, London 27th January – 15th April 2018 In desperate anticipation for this exhibition I pre-ordered the catalogue, something I have never done before. King Charles I’s rule divided Britain, and his legacy divides opinion still. There are overriding feelings of his incompetency as a monarch, and over-ambition which ultimately led to…
Read MoreThe Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 & Monochrome: Painting in Black and White
The Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904, Tate Britain, until 7th May 2018 The first room of this vast exhibition focusses on the Franco-Prussian and Civil War in Paris, the reason many Impressionist artists fled the city in the 1870s. Art created during any time of conflict has the ability to communicate something significant at…
Read MoreEl Greco to Goya – Spanish Masterpieces from The Bowes Museum
Wallace Collection, London Until 7th January 2018 The Bowes Museum has been on my list of places to visit for some time now, so when the Wallace Collection announced that they would be showing a selection of their Spanish masterpieces I knew that it would be an unmissable opportunity. The two intimate galleries display paintings that…
Read MoreSargent: The Watercolours
Until 8th October 2017 Dulwich Picture Gallery, London John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) is an artist whose name conjures visions of grand portraits on enormous canvases, depicted in his inimitable signature style. But there was so much more to him than that, and just to be remembered as a society portraitist would almost certainly have been…
Read MoreRaphael: The Drawings
The Ashmolean, Oxford Until 3rd September 2017 Michelangelo wrote of Raphael in a letter “everything he knew about art he got from me”. Like his predecessor, Raphael was a master draughtsman, able to draw accurately and rapidly, but also with that rare ability of committing his thoughts to paper confidently, translating ideas into lines, defining and…
Read MoreGiovanni da Rimini: A 14th-Century Masterpiece Unveiled
National Gallery, London Until 8th October 2017 I dropped into the National Gallery in London last week, keen to see the latest Room 1 exhibition; Giovanni da Rimini: A 14th-Century Masterpiece Unveiled. I love religious art of the 14th century, with its gold backdrops, symbolic colours and mystical depictions of saints and bible stories….
Read MoreMasterpiece London, 2017
29th June – 5th July 2017 Last night I visited Masterpiece London, the annual art and antiques fair, for the first time. Now in its eighth year, the venue in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea brought together 153 of the leading galleries and dealers from London and internationally. Spanning 7,000 years the…
Read MoreCagnacci’s Repentant Magdalene and Rubens & Rembrandt at the National Gallery
I dropped into the National Gallery recently to catch the latest Room 1 display; Cagnacci’s Repentant Magdalene (on until 21st May 2017). I really love these small displays. The selections are always wonderful, spotlighting works that are generally obscure, providing an accessible and inspiring experience. The Repentant Magdalene (1660-61) was painted by the little-known Guido Cagnacci and is widely-regarded…
Read MoreMichelangelo & Sebastiano
15th March – 25th June 2017 National Gallery, London When it was announced that the National Gallery was putting on an exhibition to combine the titan Michelangelo with the lesser-known artist Sebastiano del Piombo, I was worried that there would be an imbalance. Although del Piombo is undoubtedly one of the most important painters of the first…
Read MoreRevolution: Russian Art 1917–1932
Royal Academy of Arts, London 11th February – 17th April 2017 This week I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to the private view of the RA’s latest blockbuster, Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932. I didn’t know what to expect, as my art history knowledge is shamefully limited to Western Art. I know of the…
Read MoreThe Camden Town Group: Art for the Edwardian Era
The Lightbox, Woking Until 22nd January 2017 Art is always a good indicator of what is going on historically at any given time or place, whether a product of it or a reaction against it. When Queen Victoria’s rule in England ended in Britain, the dawning of the Edwardian era brought about a feeling of…
Read MoreBeyond Caravaggio
National Gallery, London Until 15th January 2017 A day before my birthday this year, Beyond Caravaggio opened. It could have been coincidence, or perhaps the National Gallery planned it especially for me. Either way, I knew what I would be spending my birthday doing. This exhibition is a survey of the enormous influence of Caravaggio (1571-1610)…
Read MorePainting with Light: Art & Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age
Tate Britain, London Until 25th September Any show with Pre-Raphaelite or Impressionist works in are always popular, but can sometimes be a matter ‘style over substance’. This Tate show has done something unique, focusing on the very close relationship of photographers and artists, and their interchangeability. The two art forms – and we see…
Read MoreBotticelli Reimagined
5th March – 3rd July 2016 V&A Museum, London We all know Botticelli. We know his deptictions of beautiful Venuses and Virgin Marys, or portraits of rich young men in their finery. His is a name that evokes a mysterious and magical style, always with an undertone of the spiritual, mythological or intellectual. He fused tradition…
Read MoreDelacroix and the Rise of Modern Art
National Gallery, until 22nd May 2016 King of the French Romantics, Delacroix has long been a favourite of mine. In this groundbreaking exhibition the enduring legacy of a revolutionary painter is explored, hanging his works beside those of his descendents. He had said that paint was ‘only the pretext, only the bridge between the mind of…
Read MoreJohn Constable: Observing the Weather
Until 8th May 2016 The Lightbox, Woking Constable, a name that is synonymous with our idealised image of the English countryside, is not all that he seems. Firstly, he was a rebel, pioneering new ideas, styles and methods throughout his career. Because of this he did not fit into the Royal Academy’s pedagogic view…
Read MoreBrothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton & Julia Margaret Cameron
Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton Watts Gallery until 19th February 2016 Julia Margaret Cameron V&A Museum until 21st February 2016 To catch up with my lack of gallery visit over Christmas and January, I saw a couple of exhibitions which are closing soon. It was good to see them in succession like this…
Read MoreGoya: The Portraits
7th October 2015 – 10 January 2016 National Gallery, London After seeing an exhibition of Goya‘s drawings earlier this year I was excited to see this exhibition, showing a totally different side to the artist. The Courtauld’s collection of witches and old women gave us Goya’s imagination unleashed, creations of nightmarish figures and macabre scenes; whereas…
Read MoreThe Art of Bedlam – Richard Dadd
16th June – 1st November, Watts Gallery A couple of weekends ago I visited the Richard Dadd exhibition at Watts Gallery. I had heard of the artist and had seen an image of one of his paintings in a book, but I had not done my usual reading-up on him. This turned out to be…
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