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Picture Postcards from the Alps

Visit the evocative Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller exhibition at the National Gallery in London and you could think it was sponsored by the Austrian Tourist Board, because these oil paintings so beautifully depict the magnificent Alpine scenery that has long attracted visitors.  Those towering mountains with their craggy grey peaks, so high they're topped with a glacier, the rich green meadows, some above the treeline, others on lower slopes or down in the valleys where the rivers meander. It's all there. But look a little longer and you become aware that some things are missing; where are those familiar chairlifts, cable cars, broad ski pistes, railways and roads? There are only a scattering of houses; maybe just a few inns and hotels catering for the adventurous, for Austrian tourism is in its infancy. That's because Waldmüller was born in Vienna in 1793 and died near the Vienna Woods in 1865.  Waldmüller: Landscapes , a free single-room display of just over a dozen paintings...
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Four Scotsmen Walk into an Art Gallery....

France had the Impressionists, Germany had the Expressionists, and Italy had the Futurists, but Scotland -- well, Scotland had the Colourists. Four of them, to be precise, creating quite distinctive, often very exuberant art in the first few decades of the 20th century, and you can see them right now in  Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives  at The Arc in Winchester.  We've featured the Colourists on this blog before , but you don't get the chance to see them in southern England that much, and this Winchester show (previously on at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh) places them in context with some of their British and European contemporaries, some of whose work carries quite an impact. All in all, it's a very enjoyable exhibition.  The Colourists were JD Fergusson, SJ Peploe, FCB Cadell and Leslie Hunter. All influenced by developments in Post-Impressionist French art, and notably by the bold use of colour and line of the Fauvists , they didn't actually exhibit tog...
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Opening and Closing in August

August is always one of the quietest months for new exhibitions, and this year is no different, but we do have one big event to alert you to, as well as two splendid shows that only have weeks to run.  The one major opening is  Gwen John: Strange Beauties  at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Running from August 1 to January 4, this is a comprehensive retrospective of the work of the woman perhaps now seen as Wales's most significant artist, born 150 years ago this year. Maybe a little too comprehensive, according to some of the reviews of the show when it was on at the National Museum in Cardiff. The exhibition goes on to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, in February and then at the end of July next year to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. We saw a rather smaller Gwen John exhibition in Chichester in 2023.  Last chance to see.... Ending on August 23 is the exhibition at the Lakenhal in Leiden ...
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The Fabric of Faith

We must confess that religious paintings are not our favourite subject, and we've tended to regard Spanish Catholic art as being, well, just a little too religious to cope with. So we approached the Francisco de  Zurbarán  exhibition at the National Gallery in London with a certain amount of trepidation. A degree of contrition is due.... Yes, there were monks, altarpieces and lots of saints, but we were blown away by Zurbarán's ability to depict textures and fabrics and to convey an intensity of feeling.  It's an absolutely excellent exhibition, full of truly beautiful paintings. Such religious art was intended to bring the faithful closer to God, to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth, in an age when many could not read. Zurbarán was a master at it. Let's start with a saint: Just take a look at the fabrics, trimmings and gems in this picture. And the garments are even more striking when you are stood in front of this nearly life-size figure.  This is Casild...
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New Exhibitions in July

It's not opening until September 10, but tickets to see The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum go on sale at 1000 on July 1, so if you want to see it this year you'll probably need to get in early. Follow the link for details. Booking for the rest of the run, from January 1 through to July 11, 2027, will open later in 2026. If you've never seen this most astounding of historical artefacts in its natural habitat in Normandy, you'll want to seize the chance in London.  But what about this month? Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793-1865) is regarded as one of Austria's finest 19th-century painters, and there's a free single-room show devoted to his views of the Alps, Vienna and Sicily from July 2 at the National Gallery. Waldmüller: Landscapes  is on till September 20.  Richard Dadd (1817-1886) was already known as a successful painter of Shakespearean fairy scenes before he began experiencing delusions, leading him to kill his father. Confined to Bethlem and Broa...
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Eastbourne Says No to Fascism

Terrible times: poverty and unemployment everywhere around; right-wing strongmen and populists in power overseas; and the shadow of war hanging over it all. Times for artists to take a stand.  And, in the 1930s, some of them did, forming a group in London called the Artists International Association. Their story is the subject of  Comrades in Art: Artists against Fascism at Towner Eastbourne, a show with a lot of very interesting art amid fascinating history -- but rather too much detail to absorb easily. There are many little-known or unknown names to conjure with, and it's a big exhibition; this is a venue where you never feel short-changed.  Let's plunge straight into the action, because it's all kicking off in Trafalgar Square, where the police are going in violently against protesters who've arrived in London after a hunger march against unemployment.   The Struggle between the Unemployed and the Police Forces  (also known as Hunger Marchers Entering ...
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New Exhibitions in June

Frida Kahlo: Now, there's a name to be reckoned with. More than just a painter, a global phenomenon, a superstar who died too young. And so coming to Tate Modern on June 25 we have  Frida: The Making of an Icon , surely set to be one of the most in-demand tickets in London this year. It's not so much a show about Frida, though, as about the cult of Frida: More than 30 of her works are accompanied by some 200 by contemporaries and those from later generations whom she inspired, and then there are over 200 objects exploring "Fridamania". The show had good reviews when it was on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and you've got until January 3 to catch it at the Tate.  While we're on the subject of mid 20th-century female icons whose candle burned out long before their legend ever did....  Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait  starts at the National Portrait Gallery on June 4. The Hollywood star would have been 100 years old this year, and this show, running until Sept...
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