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...
Mary, Queen of Scots: She acceded to the throne when just six days old, spent her childhood in France, was married three times and was forced to abdicate by an uprising. She fled south seeking the protection of her cousin Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen of England. But the Catholic Mary had once claimed the crown of the Protestant Elizabeth, and she spent nearly two decades in custody, never actually coming face-to-face with her cousin, before she was eventually executed for plotting against Elizabeth. What a story. Dynastic ambition, power politics, religious strife, sex and quite a lot of violence. Gorgeous costumes too. No wonder it's had such a hold on the imaginations of dramatists and musicians down the centuries. Schiller's play, Donizetti's opera, films starring the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson. Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens at the British Library in London captures some of the drama and spectacle of the events. The...