August is always one of the quietest months for new exhibitions, and this year is no different, but we do have one big event to alert you to, as well as two splendid shows that only have weeks to run. The one major opening is Gwen John: Strange Beauties at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Running from August 1 to January 4, this is a comprehensive retrospective of the work of the woman perhaps now seen as Wales's most significant artist, born 150 years ago this year. Maybe a little too comprehensive, according to some of the reviews of the show when it was on at the National Museum in Cardiff. The exhibition goes on to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, in February and then at the end of July next year to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. We saw a rather smaller Gwen John exhibition in Chichester in 2023. Last chance to see.... Ending on August 23 is the exhibition at the Lakenhal in Leiden ...
Compiling this preview of new exhibitions for November, we're filled with the foreboding that quite a few may not actually open, at least not as scheduled, given the way the coronavirus pandemic is developing. Some shows that were due to open their doors have already been delayed.
It seems right to start, then, with what the Royal Academy in London describes as an exploration of grief, loss and longing through dark territories and raw emotions. Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul finds Emin, who's long been fascinated with the Norwegian, selecting some 20 of his works from the Munch Museum in Oslo to sit alongside 25 of her own. On from November 15 to February 28, and then moving to the sparkling new Munch Museum, which opens in Oslo in the spring.
A new show at Tate Britain features the paintings of contemporary British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Fly in League with the Night brings together about 80 works and will run from November 18 to May 9. Yiadom-Boakye is known for portraits drawn not from real life but from her imagination, and we first came across her in the All Too Human survey of a century of British figurative painting at the Tate in 2018. The exhibition transfers to Moderna Museet in Stockholm in June.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery has taken a long time to reopen, but it finally does so on November 21 with an exhibition entitled Unearthed: Photography's Roots, which shows the history of photography through depictions of plants and botany. Going back 180 years, the curators trace the early use of the camera for scientific studies, move through abstraction in the early 20th century and culminate with more modern work including the eroticism of Robert Mapplethorpe. This show also runs until May 9.
It's 100 years since Noël Coward made his West End debut as a 19-year-old playwright. With West End theatres in limbo, it's time for the City of London to step in: the Guildhall Art Gallery is celebrating with a new exhibition entitled Noël Coward: Art & Style. The writer of Brief Encounter and Mad Dogs and Englishmen had a huge impact on fashion and culture in the mid-20th century, and his influence continues. This show, including previously undisplayed material, is on from November 20 to May 16.
A broad retrospective of the light-filled work of the Skagen painter Anna Ancher has been a big hit in Denmark this year. Its first run at the National Gallery in Copenhagen was cut short by the coronavirus lockdown, but it's back at the museum for an encore from November 4 to January 31.
Piet Mondrian's abstract geometric paintings make him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, and the Dutch art movement known as De Stijl that he's associated with features at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid over the winter. Mondrian and De Stijl, a collaboration with the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, runs from November 11 to March 1.
Where best to escape the pandemic? The top of a Swiss mountain, perhaps? The allure of the Alps is at the core of Wild at Heart: Romanticism in Switzerland, at the Kunsthaus in Zurich from November 13 to February 14. Swiss artists including Henry Fuseli are joined by foreigners such as Caspar David Friedrich and JMW Turner in an exhibition encompassing more than 150 works.
Do remember to take into account the latest travel restrictions and to check museum websites for up-to-date information before attempting to book for any of the exhibitions listed here. If you're allowed to leave home in the first place, that is.
Images
Edvard Munch, The Death of Marat, 1907, Munchmuseet, Oslo
Imogen Cunningham, Agave Design I, 1920s. © The Imogen Cunningham Trust
Imogen Cunningham, Agave Design I, 1920s. © The Imogen Cunningham Trust
Ford Madox Brown, Manfred on the Jungfrau,
1841/61, Manchester Art Gallery
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