Opening and Closing in October

We'll start this month at the almost brand-new Young V&A in London's East End -- Bethnal Green to be precise. It opened in July, as a museum specifically designed to appeal to children and families. October 14 sees the arrival of the first big exhibition there, called Japan: Myths to Manga. It explores landscape, history, folklore, culture, technology and design -- with toys, games and cartoons playing a big part as well as superb art like Hokusai's Great Wave. On till August 11.

If you missed the magnificent Gwen John exhibition at Pallant House in Chichester this summer (and there's still a week to go!), a version will be coming to the Holburne Museum in Bath from October 21. In the Holburne's somewhat smaller exhibition space, the show, running until April 14, will have an increased focus on the intensity and intimacy of John's late work. There are pictures too by contemporaries including Vuillard, Bonnard and Hammershøi. Also on at the Holburne until January 14, a look at the early 19th-century miniature portraitist Sarah Biffin, born without arms or legs but who learned to paint using her mouth. A fascinating story, as we saw at Philip Mould in London last year. 

Next up at the Pallant in Chichester, starting on October 28, is John Craxton: A Modern Odyssey. Craxton, who lived from 1922 to 2009, escaped the austerity and social strictures of post-World War II Britain to find a new and exciting world of colour in the Mediterranean, especially in Greece. This one, featuring more than 100 works, is on until April 21. 

It's been a while since we've been to the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, but there's a intriguing-looking show there from October 7 to January 28 entitled Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now. Contemporary works will be displayed alongside historic pictures from major collections, many on view for the first time. 

Off to Dublin now, where the Hugh Lane Gallery is presenting a show of one of the most recognisable artists of the 20th century. Andy Warhol Three Times Out is on from October 6 to January 28 and brings together more than 250 works from Europe and North America -- paintings, prints, photos, films and installations. There'll be Marilyn, Mao, Campbell's Soup and lots more.

It's a distinguished Irish painter who's in the spotlight across the city at the National Gallery of Ireland. John Lavery (1856-1941) was renowned for his portraits, but Lavery. On Location focuses on the paintings he made during his extensive travels in Europe and beyond. The exhibition runs from October 7 to January 14, before moving on to the Ulster Museum in Belfast in February and the National Galleries in Edinburgh in July. 

One of the exhibitions we've most enjoyed this year was the one at Dulwich Picture Gallery showing how the Impressionist Berthe Morisot was heavily influenced by 18th-century British and French painting. Quite eye-opening, and it's back on in Paris from October 18 to March 3 at the Musée Marmottan Monet as Berthe Morisot and the Art of the 18th Century, though in a form that looks to be concentrating more on French Rococo influences -- Fragonard, Watteau and Boucher. 

Opening at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris on October 3 is Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: The Final Months. Vincent van Gogh arrived in Auvers, near Paris, in late May 1890 and died there a little more than two months later. He produced more than 70 paintings in that brief period, and around 40 pictures will be on display along with 20 drawings in this show running until February 4. It was previously on at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

And the next show at the Van Gogh Museum? More van Gogh, obviously. Though admittedly not just him -- there's Paul Signac, Georges Seurat, Emile Bernard and Charles Angrand. They all went to the banks of the River Seine around Asnières, on the north-west outskirts of Paris, to paint the changing landscape. Van Gogh along the Seine is open from October 13 to January 14. 

How about something a bit different? Nobody's mounted a big exhibition before about tronies, that particularly Dutch Golden Age genre of portraits that aren't actually portraits; they're studies of human faces, their expressions, headgear, experiments in paint and light. Turning Heads is the first major show at the KMSKA in Antwerp after its reopening last year. It will have pictures by Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer among the 76 works on display, and it's on from October 20 to January 21. The exhibition then moves to the National Gallery of Ireland in February. 

Also on in Antwerp from October 31: Rare and Indispensable -- Masterpieces from Flemish Collections at the MAS (it's all abbreviations in the Antwerp museum world....). Twenty years ago, the Flemish government began a list of significant works of art that are given protected status. To mark the anniversary, they've picked some of them from 20 museums around the region for a special show. Artists represented include Rubens, Jordaens, Ensor and Magritte -- but it's not just Flemings or Belgians, there's Francis Bacon and Henry Moore too. Until February 25. 

The travelling exhibition from Kyiv museums illustrating the development of modernist art in Ukraine from 1900 to 1930 arrives at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels on October 19. In the Eye of the Storm features more than 60 works from artists including Kazymyr Malevych and El Lissitzky. It's on until January 28, and it's worth noting that that it will be coming to the Royal Academy in London in late June. 

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid has an ambitious-looking exhibition that aims to provide an overview of major women artists from the late 16th to the early 20th century from a feminist viewpoint, featuring nearly 100 works by Artemisia Gentileschi, Angelica Kauffman, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and many others. Women Masters runs from October 31 to February 4, and then a smaller version of the show will travel next year to the Arp Museum in Remagen in western Germany.  

And, coincidentally or not, at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg there's Ingenious Women: Women Artists and their Companions, running from October 14 to January 28. Kauffman, Sofonisba Anguissola and Judith Leyster are among the 30 artists whose careers are examined in the context of their families, with 150 works on show. This one goes on to the Kunstmuseum in Basel in March. Of the two exhibitions, the pictures we've seen from the Madrid show look rather more exciting than those in Hamburg....

The Kunsthalle in Bremen -- a venue we've always enjoyed visiting -- is marking its 200th anniversary with a look back to the start of the 20th century when it was at the forefront of promoting modern French art in Germany, provoking a scandal with the purchase of van Gogh's Field with Poppies. Celebration: Monet to van Gogh brings together early purchases of such "shocking" artworks from Bremen and other German museums, with Manet, Courbet and Degas also on show. October 7 to February 18. 

And for any readers in the eastern United States, you can see The Rossettis at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington from October 21 to January 28. There are some stunning, quite gorgeous paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in this exhibition, which we saw at Tate Britain in London, but we found the presentation of this story of Dante Gabriel, his poet sister Christina and his short-lived wife and muse Lizzie Siddal overlong and more than a bit confusing. 

Last chance to see.... 

Gwen John closes at Pallant House in Chichester on October 8 before transferring to the Holburne in Bath.

October 8 is also the last date for Dressing the Georgians at the Queen's Gallery in London, an absolutely absorbing show about what people of all classes in the 18th century wore, with paintings, caricatures, costumes and more. Well worth a visit.

Alas, our tails failed to wag very enthusiastically at Portraits of Dogs at the Wallace Collection in London, which ends on October 15. Some highlights, but an awful lot of syrupy Landseers. 

Images

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Under the Wave off Kanagawa, from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1831. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Andy Warhol (1928-1986), Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn), 1967, Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Image: Aaron Wessling Photography. © 2023 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Self-Portrait, 1885. © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Bridges Across the Seine at Asnières, 1887, Emil Bührle Collection, on long-term loan at Kunsthaus Zürich
Helene Funke (1869-1957), In the Theatre Box, 1904-07, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz. Photo: Reinhard Haider. Peter Funke Estate
Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827), New Invented Elastic Breeches, 1784, Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2023