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It's All About the Pose.... and the Clothes

Go and see John Singer Sargent's paintings at Tate Britain and you come away with the impression of Sargent as an incredibly savvy stylist and promoter of his sitters -- the elite of London, Paris, New York and Boston. That's not to downplay his talent as an artist, because  Sargent and Fashion   shows he was brilliantly skilled, producing images with real staying power. You may not know much now about the people -- then famous -- he painted more than a century ago, but the pictures themselves still exert a fascination.  Flamboyant -- that's perhaps the adjective to use when describing Sargent's most striking works, and flamboyant's definitely the word for Dr Pozzi at Home .  Samuel-Jean Pozzi was a Parisian gynaecologist, with links to avant-garde art circles. You might expect a late 19th-century professional to be portrayed in a dark suit, but Sargent shows Dr Pozzi in a crimson dressing gown, wearing Turkish slippers. Standing in front of red curtain, it's as

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Opening and Closing in March

Pan-European art superstar Angelica Kauffman comes to the Royal Academy in London on March 1. Feted in London, Venice and Rome in the late 18th century, and indeed a founding member of the RA, she was one of the few women to smash through the glass ceiling of the male-dominated art world. Known above all for her celebrity portraits, she also created history paintings with a female slant. Kauffman was originally due a retrospective at the RA in 2020 before Covid struck, and we saw that show at the Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf. Her story is a fascinating one though, to be frank, we found the history more intriguing than some of her art. You can see Kauffman at the RA until June 30.   Two more women at Charleston in Lewes, but a very different tale.  Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story  from March 27 to September 8 relates how, over decades, the couple fooled the art world: The shy Hepworth created widely praised paintings that she signed not in her own name but that of h

Opening and Closing in February

A big theme to start us off this month at London's Royal Academy. Entangled Pasts, 1768-Now: Art, Colonialism and Change  brings together more than 100 contemporary and historic artworks to examine empire and slavery. Joshua Reynolds, John Singleton Copley and JMW Turner on the one hand, Lubaina Himid, Yinka Shonibare and John Akomfrah on the other. It's on from February 3 to April 28.  Also at the RA, in a free display from February 17, is Flaming June , Frederic Leighton's masterpiece, a sensuous artwork that's absolutely stunning when you see it in the flesh, as it were, even if you don't normally much like Victorian painting. Usually housed in a museum in Puerto Rico, it's on show alongside others by Leighton and his contemporaries and works that inspired him. No rush, it can be seen till January 12 next year.  There'll be less classical drapery and a lot more contemporary modishness on display in Sargent and Fashion at Tate Britain from February 22. Jo

Opening and Closing in January

Let's start the New Year in Edinburgh, with two of the biggest names in Pop Art.  Eduardo Paolozzi, perhaps the pioneer of the genre with his collages from the late 1940s, was born in the Scottish capital a century ago, and you can see a retrospective of his varied work from January 27 in National Galleries Scotland's Modern Two building. Paolozzi at 100 is on until April 21.  Meanwhile, in Edinburgh's Old Town, Dovecot Studios will be presenting an exhibition of Andy Warhol's colourful commercial textile designs, dating back to the 1950s, before he found fame in New York. Andy Warhol: The Textiles is on from January 26 to May 18, when it might just be warm enough for you to enjoy an ice-cream sundae, if your tastebuds have been tickled by Warhol's fabric.  Rembrandt's earliest known works from the time when he was starting out as a painter in Leiden are pictures depicting four of the senses, and they're brought together at the city's Lakenhal museum f

What's On in 2024: Surreal Impressions

In 2024, we'll be marking the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition and the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto. There'll be lots more shows focused on women artists. It's 250 years since the birth of the great German Romantic, Caspar David Friedrich, and Roy Lichtenstein was born 100 years ago. We've picked out some of the exhibitions coming up over the next 12 months that have caught our eye, and here they are, in more or less chronological order.  February Let's start at Ordrupgaard on the outskirts of Copenhagen with Impressionism and Its Overlooked Women , described by the gallery as a "magnificent exhibition featuring works from across the world". The show focuses on five female artists, including Berthe Morisot , Mary Cassatt and Eva Gonzalès , as well as some of the models who featured in the most iconic Impressionist paintings. The exhibition is on in Denmark from February 9 to May 20, after which it transfers to the Na

Henry VIII's Incomparable Artist

In the eyes of the French poet Nicholas Bourbon, a visitor to England in the mid-1530s during the reign of Henry VIII, Hans Holbein was an "incomparable painter". There's another splendid chance to appreciate the German's unparalleled skill as a portraitist in  Holbein at the Tudor Court at the Queen's Gallery in London, though this exhibition is less a celebration of Holbein the painter -- there are only half a dozen or so large-scale paintings by him in this show -- than of Holbein the draughtsman.  It's these astonishing works that down nearly five centuries have brought to life the characters who were making history during the great upheaval of Henry's reign.  Nicholas Bourbon is there in front of you. As is Thomas More, the hint of stubble on his cheeks picked out in black chalk, the sheen on his fur collar highlighted by leaving the paper blank. We've seen these portraits before, of course, but they never fail to amaze. Henry's reign is whe

Opening in December: Colchester to St Moritz

Christmas is coming, and so maybe your thoughts are set on one of those German Christmas markets, your chilled hands warmed by a glass of mulled wine. Head to Hamburg, and you can take in a top-class exhibition as well.  Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age  starts at the Kunsthalle on December 15, marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of the leading German Romantic painter, a major retrospective with more than 60 paintings looking at the new relationship between man and nature that Friedrich explored at the start of the 19th century. It's on until April 1. We're big Friedrich fans, and we've already enjoyed one exhibition of his work this year, in Schweinfurt in northern Bavaria.  But let's head back to London, stopping in first at the National Gallery for the first-ever exhibition dedicated to a neglected 15th-century Florentine painter. That's Francesco Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed in a free show from December 7 to March 10. Pesellino work