The Art Exhibitions Blog

We'll start this month at the almost brand-new Young V&A in London's East End -- Bethnal Green to be precise. It opened in July, as a museum specifically designed to appeal to children and families. October 14 sees the arrival of the first big exhibition there, called  Japan: Myths to Manga . It explores landscape, history, folklore, culture, technology and design -- with toys, games and cartoons playing a big part as well as superb art like Hokusai's Great Wave . On till August 11. If you missed the magnificent Gwen John exhibition at Pallant House in Chichester this summer (and there's still a week to go!), a version will be coming to the Holburne Museum in Bath from October 21. In the Holburne's somewhat smaller exhibition space, the show, running until April 14, will have an increased focus on the intensity and intimacy of John's late work. There are pictures too by contemporaries including Vuillard, Bonnard and Hammershøi. Also on at the Holburne unti...

The mini skirt in the 60s, crinolines and corsets in the Victorian era, Tudor codpieces; fashion, clothing and how we dress has a lot to say about society, its values and the way people lived. In Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians at the Queen's Gallery in London, the curators give us an at times intimate insight into aspects of life under Georges I to IV, from 1714 to 1830. We also discover that fashion victims are nothing new, and who better to poke fun at those 18th-century foolish yet dedicated followers of fashion than the great Georgian caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson. Eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends, Rowlandson's somewhat portly gentleman is being manhandled by two tailors into a pair of the new tight-fitting soft-leather breeches that were all the rage among pleasure-seeking individuals in the mid-1780s. A contemporary account of the fitting process on the wall caption tells us that, like all the best satire, Rowlandson's was pretty close to...

Positively The Last Night but One, the advertisement warns. Your penultimate chance to see this New Grand Dramatic Oratorio. The Scenery entirely New, the Costumes and Decorations upon an unusually extensive Scale. The Band will be numerous and complete.  And, on account of the overwhelming clamour to see the show at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, free admissions are suspended! That's bad news for ladies of the night, but at least they're still giving members of the press a complimentary ticket....  There's no business like show business. And it was ever thus, as we find out in Two Last Nights! Show Business in Georgian Britain at London's Foundling Museum, an exhibition that takes you back to the 18th and early 19th centuries to see what has changed about going to the theatre or a concert over 200 years, and what hasn't.  The hyperbole hasn't, clearly, though perhaps we're a bit less wordy. But there are a lot more toilets, even if patrons ...