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Showing posts from December, 2019

A Queer Tale of Deception

Truth is often stranger than fiction, isn't it? Head to the newly opened venue of Charleston in Lewes for  Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story , an exhibition that relates a piece of art history that, you have to say, would make a good film.  And here are the two principal characters: Dorothy, on the left, a talented graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art , and her fellow student, friend, lover, partner and collaborator Patricia, perhaps not quite so talented, but both passionate about art.  The photograph seems to tell you a lot. Dorothy looks a little bit awkward and ill at ease, slightly frumpy, androgynous even. Patricia appears confident, glamorous, exuberant, perhaps a little.... possessive? But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. We need to establish the plot....   The rather retiring Hepworth and the outgoing, gregarious Preece became inseparable as students, and they planned to set up a studio together after graduation. In 1922, Preece took exam
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Opening and Closing in January

Pablo Picasso kicks off the exhibition year in London, with Picasso and Paper  at the Royal Academy bringing together more than 300 works from an 80-year career. Drawing, printmaking, collage and even paper sculpture all feature in this show, running from January 25 to April 13. Just outside the capital, we've enjoyed a couple of shows recently at the Lightbox in Woking, and their new exhibition is David Hockney: Ways of Working . It will look at how one of Britain's most popular artists has explored the possibilities of a wide range of media over 60 years. January 25 to April 19. Edward Hopper  is the subject of the first big show of the year at the Fondation Beyeler, just outside Basel. It will focus on Hopper's landscapes and cityscapes, and it's been put together with the Whitney Museum in New York, which holds the largest collection of his works. January 26 to May 17. Also on in Switzerland, from January 24 to May 24: Canada and Impressionism at the Fonda
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A Pedestrian Plod through the Royal Parks

When we think of the Royal Parks today, we think of vast breathing spaces in London for pleasure.... for picnicking, pop concerts, promenading, but Play, Protest and Pelicans: A People's History of the Royal Parks at the Garden Museum in Lambeth shows that these green spaces were not used just for popular pastimes in times past. The provision of produce, privacy, policing, pets and of course the pelicans are all touched on in this small exhibition that also throws a sliver of light on the parks' role in both world wars. It's a show that dips its toe into the pool of some interesting stories but, alas, never really wades in. The parks started out as royal hunting grounds and were only gradually opened up to the public. It's interesting to learn about 18th- and 19th-century battles for popular access to Richmond Park, and about the private gates that allowed wealthy local residents privileged access to Hyde Park (a selection of keys are on display). For many years,
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What's On in 2020 -- Raphael, Titian, Van Eyck

In 2019 it was all Leonardo and Rembrandt. In 2020 it's the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael, so he's one of the really big names on the exhibition calendar for the new year, along with Jan van Eyck. Here's a look at some of the key shows across Britain and Europe for your diary, in more or less chronological order.  January Edward Hopper 's landscapes and cityscapes are at the fore of an exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler near Basel starting on January 26. It's organised in conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, which has the largest collection of Hopper's often enigmatic, mysterious works. Until May 17. The Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf is presenting a big show, running from January 30 to May 24, devoted to Angelica Kauffman , a rare exception in being a successful and respected woman artist in the late 18th century. The Swiss-born artist was one of only two women founder members of the Royal Academy in London, where th
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A Wonderful Window on Anglo-Indian Art

A show of paintings by Indian artists for their English rulers during the 100 years or so that the East India Company ran the subcontinent in the late 18th and 19th century. Sounds quite interesting from a historical point of view, we thought, but maybe not that enthralling.  Forgotten Masters   at the Wallace Collection in London exceeded our expectations by a mile. It's an absolutely fascinating exhibition, entertainingly and beautifully presented (it's curated by William Dalrymple, the historian and author of many books on South Asia), and with some stunning works of art by painters you're unlikely ever to have heard of -- Bhawani Das, Sita Ram, Yellapah. Many of these pictures, it seems, were in albums locked away in drawers and cupboards for decades. They combine the Indian tradition of painting using stone-based pigments mixed in shells with scientific European innovation in areas such as natural history and architecture, and the use of Western watercolours.
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The Fantastic Félix Fénéon

Take a good look at this man; he was very famous in Paris a century ago. You might think he was a magician, possibly a circus ringmaster or a fairground proprietor. Wrong on all counts; he was an anarchist, albeit one who worked for the War Ministry, and he became one of the most influential art critics and collectors in France. His name was  Félix Fénéon , and you can find out all about him and the art he championed in an absolutely splendid exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in the French capital, a show that's full of surprises and delights. Fénéon was a huge promoter of Neo-Impressionism (a description he coined), and it was the Pointillist Paul Signac who portrayed him in the painting above. That swirling, mesmerising, multi-coloured, almost psychedelic background? It was based on the pattern for a kimono in a collection of Japanese pictures that Signac owned. This was cutting-edge art in 1891, and Signac and Fénéon were at the sharp end. Fénéon is certainly a d
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Toulouse-Lautrec -- Beyond the Moulin Rouge

Toulouse-Lautrec: He's one of those artists who immediately creates an association in your mind. A very small man in a bowler hat, the naughty 1890s, the Moulin Rouge . It's by no means the whole story, as the retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris,  Toulouse-Lautrec: Resolutely Modern , seeks to explain, but it's his depictions of Parisian nightlife that are still the most striking products of a short, hedonistic life. The Grand Palais is one of those venues that likes to give you a really comprehensive exhibition (quite a French trait). You hardly ever leave wanting more; you usually wish they'd trimmed it down a bit, and this one, with 228 works, is no exception. That said, it's largely an enjoyable and instructive show that takes you through Lautrec's life and art in a comprehensible, rounded chronology. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born in 1864 in Albi in southern France. His family was an aristocratic one, but his parents were first cousins, and t
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Uninspired by the East

We went to the British Museum in London recently with high hopes of Inspired by the East , a show intended to explore how the Islamic world influenced Western art.  We'd seen a very enlightening exhibition in Paris earlier in the year called Oriental Visions  that looked at how painters gave an often thoroughly mendacious interpretation of the Middle East, and then we were intrigued by the successful 19th-century English artist John Frederick Lewis , who liked to reimagine himself as a Arab merchant or chieftain.  And the British Museum show starts off strongly, with an arresting image from the Victorian heyday of Orientalism:  The Prayer  by the American artist Frederick Arthur Bridgman.  A splendidly dressed man and another wearing a patched garment are worshipping inside a mosque. The details are splendid; Bridgman brought many props back from trips to the Orient, including the lamp and carpet so meticulously rendered here. "My impressions of North Africa can n
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