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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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Opening in March

The blockbuster is Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy at Tate Modern, which runs from March 8 to September 9. It's the first ever solo Picasso show there, and the Tate is calling it one of the most significant it's ever staged. More than 100 works will take the visitor on a month-by-month journey through a pivotal year in Picasso's life. When it was on at the Musee Picasso in Paris, this exhibition was called 1932: Année Erotique, but you can imagine the Tate might have had trouble with that for its posters on the Tube... Be warned, this show appears to set a new standard for London ticket prices at £22 (they cost half that -- 12.50 euros -- in Paris).
The National Portrait Gallery offers Victorian Giants: the Birth of Art Photography from March 1 to May 20, featuring pictures by Lewis Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron. There's more camerawork at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in The Great British Seaside, including new material by Martin Parr.

Tacita Dean, who works mainly in film, will be ubiquitous this spring, with shows exploring the Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery and Still Life at the National Gallery, both on from March 15 to May 28. A third exhibition looking at Landscape opens at the Royal Academy in May.

An intriguing-sounding show at the Whitechapel Gallery promises a first view of the public artworks commissioned for London's Crossrail project. Art for the Elizabeth Line opens March 13 and runs through to May 6.

Moving outside the capital, the Ashmolean in Oxford is highlighting American art from the 1920s and 30s, with major loans from the Metropolitan Museum in New York and many works on view in the UK for the first time. Georgia O'Keeffe and Edward Hopper are among the big names in America's Cool Modernism from March 23 to July 22.
The Louvre is devoting a huge-sounding exhibition to Delacroix, with some 180 works by the French Romantic. It's the first full Delacroix retrospective in Paris since 1963 and can be seen from March 29 to July 23.

Finally, if you're in the National Gallery over the next few months and are wondering where one of the country's most iconic pictures has gone... Mr and Mrs Andrews have headed off to the Kunsthalle in Hamburg for Thomas Gainsborough: The Modern Landscape, which starts March 2 and continues to May 27.

Images

Cecil Beaton, Pablo Picasso, rue la Boétie, 1933, Paris. (c) The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's
Georgia O'Keeffe, East River from the Shelton Hotel, 1928, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (c) 2017 Artists Rights Society, New York
Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews, c. 1750. (c) The National Gallery, London

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887
–
1986)
East River from the Shelton Hotel,
1928
Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 81.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
© 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New Yor
Cecil Beaton
Pablo Picas
so, rue La Boétie, 19
33, Paris
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