Frida Kahlo: Now, there's a name to be reckoned with. More than just a painter, a global phenomenon, a superstar who died too young. And so coming to Tate Modern on June 25 we have Frida: The Making of an Icon , surely set to be one of the most in-demand tickets in London this year. It's not so much a show about Frida, though, as about the cult of Frida: More than 30 of her works are accompanied by some 200 by contemporaries and those from later generations whom she inspired, and then there are over 200 objects exploring "Fridamania". The show had good reviews when it was on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and you've got until January 3 to catch it at the Tate. While we're on the subject of mid 20th-century female icons whose candle burned out long before their legend ever did.... Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait starts at the National Portrait Gallery on June 4. The Hollywood star would have been 100 years old this year, and this show, running until Sept...
Got any plans for the first month of 2021? Zoom call? Vaccination? An exhibition? Well, here's a few that are scheduled to open, if the authorities allow. London's first big-name show of the year is at the Royal Academy. Francis Bacon: Man and Beast looks at how the boundaries between humans and animals are so often distorted in Bacon's violent pictures. Bacon was fascinated by the subject of animal movement throughout his career. This exhibition is scheduled from January 30 to April 18. The previous lockdown meant the curtain failed to go up in November on Noël Coward: Art & Style at the Guildhall Art Gallery, but the show is now slated to begin its run on January 14. The exhibition, including previously undisplayed material, is being staged to commemorate the centenary of Coward's West End debut as a 19-year-old playwright. The writer of Brief Encounter and Mad Dogs and Englishmen had a huge impact on fashion and culture in the...