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Rembrandt & van Hoogstraten: The Art of Illusion

It takes a split second these days to create an image, and how many millions are recorded daily on mobile phones, possibly never to be looked at again? You can see it all happening in the palatial surroundings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, definitely one of those tick-off destinations on many travellers' bucket lists, where those in search of instant pictorial satisfaction throng the imposing statue-lined staircase for a selfie or pout for a photo in the café under the spectacular cupola. But we're not in Vienna for a quick fix, we're at the KHM to admire something more enduring in the shape of art produced almost 500 years ago by Rembrandt and his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten that was intended to mislead your eyes into seeing the real in the unreal. Artistic deception is the story at the centre of  Rembrandt--Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion , one of the most engrossing and best-staged exhibitions we've seen this year. And, somewhat surprisingly, a show wi...
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Opening in June

The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition this year is a little bit special: It's the 250th, and Grayson Perry heads the committee that's picked the 1,200 or so art works on show from June 12 to August 19. Concurrently, the RA is putting on The Great Spectacle: 250 Years of the Summer Exhibition telling the story from Joshua Reynolds to the present day.
There are two linked shows at the National Gallery as well, running from June 11 to October 7. Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire is the first exhibition in the UK devoted to the British-born American landscape artist inspired by Turner and Constable (tickets can be had for less than £10 on weekdays, so the National is clearly not expecting Monet-size crowds.) At the same time, there's a free display with Ed Ruscha's modern take on Thomas Cole's work in Room 1.
Tate Britain marks the centenary of the end of World War I by examining the immediate impact on British, French and German art. Aftermath, running from June 5 to September 23, brings together more than 150 works made from 1916 to 1932. There'll be William Orpen, Georges Braque, Otto Dix and George Grosz, as well as the cool New Objectivity of Christian Schad.
Elsewhere in London, the V&A looks at Frida Kahlo less as an artist than as a style icon through personal artefacts and clothing being exhibited outside her native Mexico for the first time. Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up starts on June 16 and is on until November 4.

The Wallace Collection opens its new exhibition space with a show celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of its founder, Sir Richard Wallace, and his eclectic collecting tastes. It's on from June 20 to January 6, and entry is free.

At the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, there's a first solo show in the UK for Tomma Abts, the German-born abstract painter who won the 2006 Turner Prize. Her vibrant, colourfully geometric works are reminiscent in some ways of Bridget Riley, but on a much smaller scale. Again, free admission to see this one, which runs from June 7 to September 9.
Heading north, the Hepworth in Wakefield attempts to tell the story of surrealism in Britain through the lens of photographer Lee Miller, later the wife of one of the leading promoters of the movement, Roland Penrose. Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain includes works by Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, and is on from June 22 to October 7 with no charge for entry.

One of the most charmingly located art galleries in Europe is the Kröller-Müller Museum in the middle of the Hoge Veluwe National Park in the south-east Netherlands. Its summer show is devoted to the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon and the influence that literature and music, such as that of Richard Wagner, played on his work. The exhibition is on from June 2 to September 9. If you don't know the Kröller-Müller, it also has the world's second-largest Van Gogh collection, as well as one of the biggest sculpture gardens on the continent.

Towards the end of this year, the National Gallery will be putting on a show of portraits by the Venetian-born Renaissance master Lorenzo Lotto, rich in symbolism and psychological depth and filled with saturated colour. But if you're planning a trip to Madrid over the summer, you might want to catch it first at the Prado, where it's on from June 19 to September 30. By the way, the Prado also has an exhibition this summer devoted to Rubens: Painter of Sketches, which runs until August 5.
Finally, the Louvre has been systematically restoring its pastel paintings and has put together more than 120 17th- and 18th-century works from its collection for Pastels at the Louvre. It features Chardin, Liotard and Maurice Quentin de La Tour and can be seen from June 7 to September 10.

Images

William Powell Frith, A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, 1883, A Pope Family Trust, courtesy Martin Beisly
Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm -- The Oxbow, 1836, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908. (c) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo by Juan Trujillo
Christian Schad, Self-Portrait, 1927, Lent from a private collection 1994. (c) Christian Schad Stiftung Aschaffenburg/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and DACS, London 2017
Tomma Abts, Weie, 2017. Courtesy Collection of Danny and Lisa Goldberg
Lorenzo Lotto, The Physician Giovanni Agostino della Torre and his Son, Niccolò, about 1513-16. (c) The National Gallery, London
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