We must confess that religious paintings are not our favourite subject, and we've tended to regard Spanish Catholic art as being, well, just a little too religious to cope with. So we approached the Francisco de Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery in London with a certain amount of trepidation. A degree of contrition is due.... Yes, there were monks, altarpieces and lots of saints, but we were blown away by Zurbarán's ability to depict textures and fabrics and to convey an intensity of feeling. It's an absolutely excellent exhibition, full of truly beautiful paintings. Such religious art was intended to bring the faithful closer to God, to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth, in an age when many could not read. Zurbarán was a master at it. Let's start with a saint: Just take a look at the fabrics, trimmings and gems in this picture. And the garments are even more striking when you are stood in front of this nearly life-size figure. This is Casild...
The camera takes centre stage in London this month, starting at Tate Modern on June 13 with Capturing the Moment, a show that aims to explore the relationship between painting and photography through work by artists including Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Gerhard Richter. No rush: It's on until January 28.
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Missed the National Portrait Gallery? It reopens after refurbishment on June 22 with Yevonde: Life and Colour, exploring the career of the pioneering London woman photographer who was an early user of colour film in the 1930s. "Be original or die," she said, and you can see just how original she was until September 15. Despite Yevonde, the early 60s in Britain still seemed to happen in black-and-white, and here's the chance to view the biggest cultural phenomenon of the decade through the lens of one of the four young Liverpudlians who were conquering the world. Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm is on at the NPG from June 28 to October 1.
The Box in Plymouth is marking the 300th anniversary of the birth near the city of Joshua Reynolds with an exhibition about the great Georgian portraitist. Pictures from the Tate, National Trust properties and around Britain are promised for a show that will be free to visit, with no need to book. Reframing Reynolds: A Celebration is on from June 24 to October 29.
Another free exhibition at the Barber Institute in Birmingham, this time featuring 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art from the collection at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, which is currently being refurbished. Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Hals and Cuyp are among the artists featured. Mastering the Market: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from Woburn Abbey can be visited from June 17 to September 24.
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And in Manchester, the Whitworth unveils a new show on June 30 exploring Albrecht Dürer's Material World. It's the first major exhibition of the Whitworth's Dürer collection in more than half a century and juxtaposes woodcuts, etchings and engravings with objects from the artist's time in three themed rooms that look at aspects of the changing Renaissance world in Dürer's home city of Nuremberg. Entry to the Whitworth is also free and this exhibition is on for ages, until March 10.
There's no Dutch Golden Age painter quite like the mysterious Jacobus Vrel, a creator of enigmatic interiors who was once confused -- in some cases deliberately -- with Vermeer. Research has uncovered a little more about Vrel, as we saw at the Mauritshuis in The Hague a couple of months ago. Now this intriguing exhibition moves to the Fondation Custodia in Paris, where Jacobus Vrel, Enigmatic Forerunner of Vermeer will be on from June 17 to September 17.
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Not too far outside Paris, the Château de Chantilly is staging a retrospective of that seductive French painter of the early and mid-19th century, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The show, with more than 100 works, including a number of international loans, will have a special focus on Ingres' links with what's known as the July Monarchy, lasting from 1830 to 1848, a period that saw him producing some of his greatest paintings. Ingres: The Artist and his Princes is on from June 3 to October 1.
You may need to undergo some sort of endurance training before heading to the big new exhibition at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which promises more than 200 works -- 200! -- from the Secession movements in Berlin, Munich and Vienna at the end of the 19th century. They're going big on Gustav Klimt, but Franz von Stuck and Max Liebermann will be heading the Bavarian and Prussian ranks in a show featuring 80 artists in total. Secessions -- Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann is on from June 23 to October 22. However, if your fitness levels aren't up to the challenge this year, it's due to be on at the Wien Museum in Vienna from May to October 2024.
At the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, you can see Ukrainian art from the start of the 20th century on loan from the National Art Museum and the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema Arts in Kyiv. This show -- Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s, featuring artists including Kazymyr Malevych and Alexandra Exter -- has already been on at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and is set to travel to the Royal Academy in London in June 2024. It runs in Cologne from June 3 to September 24.
One artist we never tire of seeing is Edouard Vuillard. Starting on June 23, you can explore the influence on Vuillard's work of Japanese prints -- he bought 180 of them at Parisian department stores! -- in Vuillard and the Art of Japan at the Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne. With 100 paintings and engravings by Vuillard and 50 Japanese works, it closes on October 29.
One artist we never tire of seeing is Edouard Vuillard. Starting on June 23, you can explore the influence on Vuillard's work of Japanese prints -- he bought 180 of them at Parisian department stores! -- in Vuillard and the Art of Japan at the Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne. With 100 paintings and engravings by Vuillard and 50 Japanese works, it closes on October 29.
Last chance to see....
The superb Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam ends on June 4, but there have been no more tickets available for quite a long time. However, you can still get down to the Museum Prinsenhof in the artist's home city of Delft to see a fascinating exhibition, running until the same date, about his life and times: Vermeer's Delft.Also closing on June 4 is Private & Public: Finding the Modern British Garden at the Garden Museum in London, an enjoyable show with some surprising paintings to discover.
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And just looking ahead to the start of July, a show lifting the lid on the secrets of Victorian narrative art at Southampton City Art Gallery -- Telling Tales -- finishes on July 1. We really liked this exhibition when we saw it at the Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth late last year.
Meanwhile, one of our favourite recent exhibitions -- Caspar David Friedrich and the Harbingers of the Romantic -- closes on July 2 at the Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt in northern Bavaria. It's got some of the finest paintings by the great German landscape artist, the 250th anniversary of whose birth falls in 2024.
Frans Hals (1582/83-1666), Portrait of a Man, Traditionally Identified as the Artist, c. 1635-38. © From the Woburn Abbey Collection
Jacobus Vrel, A Seated Woman Looking at a Child through a Window, after 1656, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, Paris
Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979), The Balcony, 6 Downshire Hill, Hampstead, c. 1928, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn
Images
Gerhard Richter (born 1932), Two Candles, 1982, Yageo Foundation Collection. © Gerhard Richter 2022 (0153)Frans Hals (1582/83-1666), Portrait of a Man, Traditionally Identified as the Artist, c. 1635-38. © From the Woburn Abbey Collection
Jacobus Vrel, A Seated Woman Looking at a Child through a Window, after 1656, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, Paris
Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979), The Balcony, 6 Downshire Hill, Hampstead, c. 1928, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn
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