What a lot of new exhibitions this October! We list well over 20 across Europe below -- many more than usual -- and have still had to leave out quite a few that we'd mention in most other months in order to keep this post to a reasonable length. Let's start at the Royal Academy in London with deep blue seas, cloudless skies, intense light and the heat of the sun. From October 2 to January 31, you can experience the excitement Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and many others felt while Painting the French Riviera . The exhibition features more than 160 exhibits from the 1870s to the 1960s, and a version of the show travels on to the Cleveland Museum of Art in March. Hmm, Renoir. Now perhaps seen as the most chocolate-boxy of the Impressionists, but without doubt the creator of some of the most recognisable images in French art of the late 19th century. Well worth stealing , and clearly the National Gallery is on to a winner with its Renoir and Love ex...
April, and the weather is slowly getting warmer. The delights of the garden beckon. Perfect, then, for an exhibition such as Private & Public: Finding the Modern British Garden at the Garden Museum in London. We found quite a lot to like, much of it from artists we didn't know. Though strangely, a lot of the paintings that made the biggest impression didn't seem to have a massive amount to do with gardens, or gardening. The premise of this show is to look at how British artists in the period between the two World Wars depicted private and public spaces, but those places seem to be pretty loosely defined. There's also quite a bit of work from the 1940s and 50s. The exhibition area at the Garden Museum isn't that big, but they've crammed a lot in, and if you really take a shine to a picture, it may still be for sale, as this show is put on together with the dealers Liss Llewellyn . One of the largest and most strikingly attractive paintings hangs right opposit...