It might seem a bit odd travelling to Madrid to see an exhibition by a Scandinavian artist.... but the Swede Anders Zorn made the journey to Spain nine times in his career. He wasn't a painter we'd been familiar with, the Swedes lagging some way behind their Nordic neighbours in our art explorations; we'd been intrigued by the idea of seeing a retrospective of his work in Hamburg late last year but didn't make it, so we seized the chance to view the same show at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid under the title Anders Zorn: Travelling the World, Remembering the Land . Zorn, who lived from 1860 to 1920, was a big name in his day, and it's easy to appreciate why from this exhibition. He had fantastic technique and worked in a broad range of genres, famed particularly for his portraiture. But he's quite difficult to pigeonhole, and as for some of his early subject matter, it really is rather sickly sweet. As the exhibition title spells out, Zorn explored the worl...
William Hogarth -- now there's a painter you think of as British through and through, flag-wavingly so. Just look at a painting such as 'O the Roast Beef of Old England'. So an exhibition entitled Hogarth and Europe at Tate Britain in London has something of a curious ring to it. Starting on November 3, it aims to show how Hogarth's portrayal of a rapidly changing British society in the mid-18th century was echoed by painters on the Continent, such as Francesco Guardi in Venice, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin in France and Cornelis Troost in Holland. Until March 20.
For an early pioneer of pan-European art, look no further than Albrecht Dürer. Dürer's Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist at the National Gallery from November 20 follows the master painter from Nuremberg on his trips to the Low Countries and across the Alps, spreading his own reputation and exchanging ideas with his Dutch and Italian counterparts. The first major Dürer exhibition in the UK for nearly two decades, it's on until February 27. It's been put together in collaboration with the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, and the version that was on display there over the past few months had excellent reviews in the German press.
Dürer died in 1528. At about the same time, the Spanish were just setting out on their conquest of the Inca Empire centred in modern-day Peru. Starting on November 11 at the British Museum, Peru: A Journey in Time looks back at 4,000 years of the history of the country before the Spaniards arrived. It examines the beliefs and cultural achievements of the civilisations that lived there and their legacy on subsequent generations. With many artefacts on loan from Peru, the show runs until February 20.
The new exhibition at the V&A is Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution. Starting on November 20, the show will look at how the Russian goldsmith Carl Fabergé came to international prominence, winning patrons among the Russian imperial and foreign royal families, and how he came to set up a branch in London in 1903. Highlights will include a selection of the fabulous Easter Eggs crafted for the Romanovs in the years before the Tsar was deposed by the Russian Revolution. Until May 8.
And one final show this month in a rare London-only list: Paul McCartney has a new book coming out in November recounting his life and career through his lyrics, and to coincide with the publication, there's a free display in the British Library from November 5 of a selection of highlights from the words and photographs. Paul McCartney: The Lyrics runs until March 13.
Images
Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome, 1521, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. © Instituto Portugues de Museus, Minstero da Cultura, Lisbon
Fabergé, The Moscow Kremlin Egg, 1906. © The Moscow Kremlin Museums
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