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New Exhibitions in February

Georges Seurat devised the Neo-Impressionist painting technique popularly known as Pointillism. He didn't live long and left only a small body of work, of which seascapes were a recurring motif; a couple of dozen paintings and drawings from summers spent on the northern coast of France will be brought together for  Seurat and the Sea   at the Courtauld Gallery in London from February 13 to May 17. Lucian Freud gained recognition as one of the greatest of British portrait painters for his intensely observed works, often of nudes. From February 12 to May 4, the National Portrait Gallery is putting on  Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting , which will be the first exhibition in Britain to focus on his creations on paper, some of which have never been on public display before.   Ramses and the Pharaoh's Gold  is a travelling exhibition of treasures from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities: 180 of them, with the coffin of the long-lived Ramses II among highlig...
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Opening and Closing in November

German women Expressionists at the Royal Academy in London: This may be the exhibition you've long been waiting for, or the one to make you run a mile. Making Modernism focuses on the often very vibrant work of Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin, the intense portraits and self-portraits of Paula Modersohn-Becker and the frequently harrowing prints and sculptures of Käthe Kollwitz. Most of the 65 works have never been shown in the UK before. It's on from November 12 to February 12.
A free display at the National Gallery features two JMW Turner paintings on loan from the Frick Collection in New York of the harbours at Dieppe and Cologne that the artist made on his frequent travels round Europe. Turner on Tour runs from November 3 to February 19. 

Back at Tate Britain from November 24 to February 26 is Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night, a show whose run in 2020 was curtailed by lockdown. Around 70 works are on show in a retrospective of a contemporary painter whose portraits are not of real people but fictitious characters drawn from found images or her imagination.

The Philip Mould gallery in Pall Mall will be telling the story of Sarah Biffin, born disabled in 1784 but who taught herself to draw and paint using her mouth and shoulder and established herself as a professional artist, taking commissions from royalty and the nobility. 'Without Hands': The Art of Sarah Biffin includes portraits, landscapes and still lifes and is on from November 1 to December 21. 

Sussex has played a not inconsiderable role in the development of art in Britain, and its Downs and coastline have been the inspiration for innumerable artists. Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood and Water at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester from November 12 until April 23 includes work by Turner, Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, among others. 
The touring retrospective of the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth finally makes it to Tate St Ives on November 26. Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life, which was previously to be seen in Wakefield and Edinburgh, will have a focus on Hepworth's decades in Cornwall on this leg; her home and studio are not far away. On until May 1, if you don't fancy Cornwall in winter. 

To Frankfurt now, where the Schirn Kunsthalle is staging a show on the period when the colourful fantasy world of Marc Chagall turned a shade darker. Chagall: World in Turmoil from November 4 to February 19 covers the 1930s and 40s, when the Jewish artist became increasingly concerned by the rise of the Nazis in Germany before going into exile in the US. 
As the days shorten in the northern hemisphere, there's one thing we long for: the Sun. But you can still admire a beautiful sunset, and the Kunsthalle in Bremen has collected more than a hundred of them for Sunset: A Celebration of the Sinking Sun from November 26 to April 2. Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Anna Ancher and Félix Vallotton are among the artists featured. 

We've longed to go to Samarkand, the Central Asian city on the Silk Road famed for its magnificence and the glories of its architecture. The Splendours of Uzbekistan's Oases at the Louvre in Paris will take visitors on a journey in space and time to see gold, silver, ceramics, silks and paintings, many of which are leaving Uzbekistan for the first time. November 23 to March 6. 

Last chance to see....

The exhibition at the Lighthouse in Woking highlighting the perils faced by Venice and featuring the spectacular if very different art of Canaletto & Melissa McGill ends on November 13. 

Images

Erma Bossi, Portrait of Marianne Werefkin, c. 1910, Gabriele Munter- und Johannes Eichner-Stiftung, Munich. © The Estate of Erma Bossi
William Nicholson, Whiteways Rottingdean, 1909, Private collection. © Pallant House Gallery. Photo: Barney Hindle
Marc Chagall, Bonjour Paris, 1939-42, Private collection. © VG Bild Kunst, Bonn 2022. Photo: Archives Marc et Ida Chagall
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