Frida Kahlo: Now, there's a name to be reckoned with. More than just a painter, a global phenomenon, a superstar who died too young. And so coming to Tate Modern on June 25 we have Frida: The Making of an Icon , surely set to be one of the most in-demand tickets in London this year. It's not so much a show about Frida, though, as about the cult of Frida: More than 30 of her works are accompanied by some 200 by contemporaries and those from later generations whom she inspired, and then there are over 200 objects exploring "Fridamania". The show had good reviews when it was on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and you've got until January 3 to catch it at the Tate. While we're on the subject of mid 20th-century female icons whose candle burned out long before their legend ever did.... Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait starts at the National Portrait Gallery on June 4. The Hollywood star would have been 100 years old this year, and this show, running until Sept...
Pan-European art superstar Angelica Kauffman comes to the Royal Academy in London on March 1. Feted in London, Venice and Rome in the late 18th century, and indeed a founding member of the RA, she was one of the few women to smash through the glass ceiling of the male-dominated art world. Known above all for her celebrity portraits, she also created history paintings with a female slant. Kauffman was originally due a retrospective at the RA in 2020 before Covid struck, and we saw that show at the Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf. Her story is a fascinating one though, to be frank, we found the history more intriguing than some of her art. You can see Kauffman at the RA until June 30. Two more women at Charleston in Lewes, but a very different tale. Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story from March 27 to September 8 relates how, over decades, the couple fooled the art world: The shy Hepworth created widely praised paintings that she signed not in he...