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Showing posts from April, 2024

Rembrandt & van Hoogstraten: The Art of Illusion

It takes a split second these days to create an image, and how many millions are recorded daily on mobile phones, possibly never to be looked at again? You can see it all happening in the palatial surroundings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, definitely one of those tick-off destinations on many travellers' bucket lists, where those in search of instant pictorial satisfaction throng the imposing statue-lined staircase for a selfie or pout for a photo in the café under the spectacular cupola. But we're not in Vienna for a quick fix, we're at the KHM to admire something more enduring in the shape of art produced almost 500 years ago by Rembrandt and his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten that was intended to mislead your eyes into seeing the real in the unreal. Artistic deception is the story at the centre of  Rembrandt--Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion , one of the most engrossing and best-staged exhibitions we've seen this year. And, somewhat surprisingly, a show wi...
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Opening and Closing in May

Art history? No, we're starting this month with an exhibition that we'll be tagging #artherstory on social media. Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920  opens at Tate Britain in London on May 16, with the aim of charting the path of women to being recognised as professional artists over the centuries. More than 100 will be represented: relatively widely known names such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Angelica Kauffman , Gwen John and Laura Knight , as well as the more obscure or neglected -- Levina Teerlinc, Mary Beale and Sarah Biffin . It's on till October 13, and as we've just seen a show in Germany focused on women artists over much the same timescale, we'll be keen to compare and contrast. Let's stick with a female theme. A short stroll up Millbank and across Lambeth Bridge, and you're at the Garden Museum, where from May 15 to September 29 you can see Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors . The show takes you around the gardens of Vane...
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The Cliffs, the Clouds and the Waves

What motif could be more Impressionist than a view of the cliffs or beaches of the Normandy coastline? And with this year marking the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, we've been to Normandy to take in a show focusing on that very subject.     Impressionism and the Sea  at the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny sets the scene as you enter, with the cries of screeching seagulls and the sound of waves lapping on the beach. The curators bring you Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro and other names you'll be expecting, but there are some lesser-known artists to conjure with too.  Partly, we assume, because there are so many other exhibitions about Impressionism going on this year, most of the pictures in Giverny have an unfamiliar feel. The stand-out Monet doesn't show the beach at Etretat , with its striking cliff formations, but the strand and cliffs at Les Petites Dalles, further east, beyond Fécamp.  Nevertheless, it's ver...
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A Queer Tale of Deception

Truth is often stranger than fiction, isn't it? Head to the newly opened venue of Charleston in Lewes for  Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story , an exhibition that relates a piece of art history that, you have to say, would make a good film.  And here are the two principal characters: Dorothy, on the left, a talented graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art , and her fellow student, friend, lover, partner and collaborator Patricia, perhaps not quite so talented, but both passionate about art.  The photograph seems to tell you a lot. Dorothy looks a little bit awkward and ill at ease, slightly frumpy, androgynous even. Patricia appears confident, glamorous, exuberant, perhaps a little.... possessive? But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. We need to establish the plot....   The rather retiring Hepworth and the outgoing, gregarious Preece became inseparable as students, and they planned to set up a studio together after graduation. In 1922, ...
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Opening and Closing in April

It might be the anniversary year of the French Impressionists , but Tate Modern on London's South Bank has a different agenda, starting on April 25; they're taking a step on in time to explore the world of the avant-garde German  Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider . The Tate has brought together more than 130 works from the likes of Wassily Kandinsky, Marianne von Werefkin, Franz Marc and Gabriele Münter, drawing to a large extent on the holdings of the Lenbachhaus in Munich. The show is on until October 20.  At the National Gallery, a free display from April 18 offers the chance to see The Last Caravaggio . The dramatically lit  Martyrdom of St Ursula  was painted in Naples in 1610, the year Caravaggio died in mysterious circumstances. Coming to London for the first time in 20 years, it'll be on show until July 21.  The Wallace Collection explores the life and times of Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire in Punjab,...
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