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Opening and Closing in July

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 ...
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Opening and Closing in August

With the summer holidays in full swing, August is almost inevitably the quietest month of the year for new art shows, but we do have to highlight one absolutely superb exhibition that's opening, as well as another stunning show that's coming to an end.

It's the 250th anniversary in 2024 of the birth of the great German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich, and the next in a series of commemorative retrospectives gets under way at the Kunst Museum in the Swiss city of Winterthur on August 26. Caspar David Friedrich and the Harbingers of Romance features some of the artist's most iconic pictures, including the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog and Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, as well as taking a look at the landscape painters who went before him, such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Claude Lorrain. We got to see this show in Schweinfurt in northern Bavaria in the spring and absolutely lapped it up. It's on in Winterthur until November 19.  

You only have until August 13 to get to the National Gallery in London to see After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art, which provides a crash course in developments in art from the late 19th century up to the start of World War I. Cezanne, Rodin, Gauguin, van Gogh, Klimt, Munch, Pointillists, German Expressionists, Braque, Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian are all highlighted, as well as some more surprising artists, particularly from Barcelona. A really satisfying exhibition, with much we hadn't seen before. 

Images

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon, c. 1824, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Houses in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, June 1888, Private collection
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