Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2020

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Self-portraits; now, we've seen quite a lot of exhibitions of those over the years. You know how Rembrandt or Vincent van Gogh saw themselves. But how do artists depict other artists? What happens when Peter Blake meets David Hockney, when Eric Ravilious takes on Edward Bawden? Answers can be found at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester in a very interesting and illuminating exhibition entitled  Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists .  And sometimes the artist you see is a different artist from the one you might be expecting. When Mary McCartney photographed Tracey Emin in 2000, what came out was Frida Kahlo. McCartney felt a close affinity with the Mexican artist, and so did Emin, whose controversial My Bed had just been shortlisted for the Turner Prize. McCartney said she'd had a daydream of Emin as Kahlo, who spent a lot of time in bed herself as a result of her disabling injuries.  Emin was made up and dressed for the shoot, and then, according to McCartney , "...

Subscribe to updates

Opening in January, with Any Luck

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...

What's On in 2021, Assuming Galleries Reopen....

So, 2021. What will we be able to see, where will be able to go? We're making no plans, but we're nevertheless looking forward to some interesting exhibitions across Britain and Europe in the coming 12 months. There are plenty of big names -- Botticelli, Rembrandt, Titian and Vermeer among them -- though with galleries closed yet again across much of the continent as 2020 ends and lockdowns tighten, we're only too aware of the huge coronavirus-shaped cloud of uncertainty hanging over the calendar.  Just under half of the 30 or so exhibitions we highlighted in our 2020 preview were either postponed till this year or later, if not cancelled altogether. In a spirit of vaccine-fuelled optimism and with fingers firmly crossed, here's a selection of key shows for your diary, in more or less chronological order. January  What more hopeful way to start the year than with a picture of a summer evening by the sea? It's by Peder Severin Krøyer, one of the leaders of the artist...