A very eclectic mix of shows this month, and we're starting with an exhibition that's not art at all, but of vital interest to everyone. The Science Museum is investigating the Future of Food , looking at new advances in growing, making, cooking and eating it. On from July 24 to January 4, it's free, though you need to book. Oh, and you get to see this 3,500-year-old sourdough loaf..... At the Lowry in Salford, they're offering a double bill of Quentin Blake and Me & Modern Life: The LS Lowry Collection . The show about Blake, who's written or illustrated more than 500 books, looks aimed at a family audience, while the Lowry exhibition includes borrowed works, marking the Salford arts centre's 25th anniversary. On from July 19 to January 4, and entry is again free, though you need to book a timeslot. Another anniversary this year is the 250th of the birth of Jane Austen; among the exhibitions around the country is one in Winchester, the city where she died ...
Which exhibition are we most looking forward to this month? It has to be Frans Hals at the National Gallery in London, which starts on September 30. It's the first major retrospective of the great portraitist of the Dutch Golden Age in three decades, and it will assemble around 50 of his works, including a couple of his large-scale group portraits of militiamen from the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A must-see, particularly if you missed the fantastic show focusing on Hals's male portraits at the Wallace Collection a couple of years back. All that swaggering loose -- or even louche -- brushwork is on display at the National Gallery until January 21, before transferring to the Rijksmuseum in February and then the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin in July. Hals was originally from Antwerp, and it was in the Flemish port city that his close contemporary Peter Paul Rubens spent much of his life and career. The new exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery i...