There are some familiar names and familiar paintings in Art Then! British Painting, Sculpture and Drawing, 1910-1960 at Southampton City Art Gallery, but it's the unfamiliar that makes it especially worth the trip to a venue you might not normally consider for an exhibition. This show provides an excellent overview of art trends in this country in the first half of the 20th century. And it's free! Southampton has a very good collection, but we often get the feeling that a lot of interesting works are in store behind closed doors. Pleasant surprises await when they finally see the light of the day, in this case in combination with a selection from the extensive Ingram Collection of modern British art. In all, there are more than 100 works by over 100 artists, demonstrating how the British reacted to the latest developments in art on the Continent. So let's start with a couple of hidden gems from the Southampton treasure trove, first of all a Landscape that really stoppe...
Denmark: We know what you're thinking when you hear about Denmark. You're thinking hygge , even if you don't quite know what it is. You're thinking Nordic noir . Or maybe you're just thinking pastries . But we're thinking about painting. Because for the past 200 years, the Danes have been pretty good, punching above their weight. There's Vilhelm Hammershøi , and the Skagen school. And before them, there was the Golden Age. We've just been to see to an absolutely stupendous, all-encompassing exhibition bringing together many of the masterpieces of The Danish Golden Age at the National Museum in Stockholm. It's possibly one of the best shows we've ever been to.... and we go to a lot. Danish art's finest years lasted for a little over half a century, bookended by two traumatic events: the British naval bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 aimed at stopping the Danes throwing their lot in with Napoleon, and the loss of Schleswig-Holstein follo...