If you're thinking about seeing Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery in London, be warned: There's not a huge amount to this show. The gallery describes it as "the first major exhibition dedicated to the British artist’s 'candlelight' paintings". Major? There are actually only 10 of Joseph Wright's oil paintings in this smallish display, and while they certainly include some of his finest, it's not a lot for your money. Especially as the star attraction is An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump , Wright's masterpiece of 1768, which you can usually see for free just yards away in another room in the gallery, in rather less cramped circumstances. Without a shadow of a doubt, it's an astonishing painting, somehow encapsulating the 18th-century Enlightenment -- the advance of reason and science -- in one image. Whenever we're in the National Gallery we almost always stop by to look at it for a minute or two. There is...
Swiss-born Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) was one of the leading abstract artists and designers of the early 20th century, working across a wide range of media from textiles through puppetry and painting, but she's never had a retrospective in the UK. That changes on July 15, when Tate Modern in London opens an exhibition that brings together her most important works from across Europe and the US, many of which have not been on display in Britain before. The show comes direct from the Kunstmuseum in Basel and is at the Tate until October 17, after which it moves on to MoMA in New York. If you're looking for something more cuddly than Germanic abstraction, you should head to the British Library for Paddington: The Story of a Bear , a family-friendly exhibition uncovering the inspiration behind the star of Michael Bond's classic children's books. There are first editions and original artwork for the grown-ups, and a marmalade trail to follow for the younger visitors. F...