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Opening and Closing in July

A very eclectic mix of shows this month, and we're starting with an exhibition that's not art at all, but of vital interest to everyone. The Science Museum is investigating the Future of Food , looking at new advances in growing, making, cooking and eating it. On from July 24 to January 4, it's free, though you need to book. Oh, and you get to see this 3,500-year-old sourdough loaf..... At the Lowry in Salford, they're offering a double bill of Quentin Blake and Me & Modern Life: The LS Lowry Collection . The show about Blake, who's written or illustrated more than 500 books, looks aimed at a family audience, while the Lowry exhibition includes borrowed works, marking the Salford arts centre's 25th anniversary. On from July 19 to January 4, and entry is again free, though you need to book a timeslot.  Another anniversary this year is the 250th of the birth of Jane Austen; among the exhibitions around the country is one in Winchester, the city where she died ...
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Opening in November

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. 

Art & Action: Making Change in Victorian Britain, which opens at the Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey, on November 17, is billed as the first exhibition to focus on the Victorian roots of activism in art, with painters and sculptors commenting on and seeking to resolve problems of hunger, poverty and disease. William Morris and Luke Fildes are among the artists featured in a show that runs until March 21. 

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
Ford Madox Brown, Manfred on the Jungfrau, 1841/61, Manchester Art Gallery
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