London's Courtauld Gallery is our first stop this month, for Goya to Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection in the Swiss city of Winterthur. Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and van Gogh are among the artists featured in this show, which is taking place because the villa Am Römerholz, where the collection is usually housed, is being renovated this year. This exhibition is on from February 14 to May 26. Think of Chelsea, and you may think of the annual flower show. The Saatchi Gallery, right on the King's Road, is picking up on that theme, playing host to some 500 artworks and objects in what looks to be a somewhat overwhelming exhibition entitled Flowers -- Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture . Dozens of artists are listed as being featured -- Pedro Almodóvar, Elizabeth Blackadder, Michael Craig-Martin and Damien Hirst, to name just a handful. It's on from February 12 until May 5. And with a younger audience in mind, Young V...
When she was alive, Gwen John was a big name in the art world, a really big name. As we learn at the start of Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, her pictures were so admired in France in the 1920s that "everyone knows of Miss John.... and the Salon takes all she will send them." But after her death at the start of World War II, John gained a reputation as something of a recluse, an artist who'd worked in isolation, and she was outshone by her flamboyant brother Augustus. This show in Chichester restores Gwen to her rightful position in art history, placing her squarely among a group of groundbreaking turn-of-the-century artists including Edouard Vuillard , Pierre Bonnard and her lover Auguste Rodin, for whom she posed. This is a captivating exhibition. John's paintings -- largely portraits and interiors -- are not loud or showy; they're incredibly restrained, with their muted tones and soft brushwork conveyi...