It's surely an anniversary the Tate has long been counting down to: JMW Turner was born in 1775, John Constable in 1776. To mark the 250 years of two of the country's greatest painters, Turner and Constable is on at Tate Britain from November 27 to April 12. Rivals with very different approaches to landscape painting, they were both hugely influential. More than 170 works are promised, with Turner's Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons and Constable's White Horse coming home from the US for the show. Before those two were even born, Joseph Wright of Derby had already painted his most famous picture, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump . It'll be part of Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery from November 7 to May 10, which is intended to challenge the view of Wright as just a painter of light and shade and to illustrate how he used the night to explore deeper and more sombre themes. Only 20 or so works, however, making it a disappo...
Compiling this preview of new exhibitions for November, we're filled with the foreboding that quite a few may not actually open, at least not as scheduled, given the way the coronavirus pandemic is developing. Some shows that were due to open their doors have already been delayed.
It seems right to start, then, with what the Royal Academy in London describes as an exploration of grief, loss and longing through dark territories and raw emotions. Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul finds Emin, who's long been fascinated with the Norwegian, selecting some 20 of his works from the Munch Museum in Oslo to sit alongside 25 of her own. On from November 15 to February 28, and then moving to the sparkling new Munch Museum, which opens in Oslo in the spring.
A new show at Tate Britain features the paintings of contemporary British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Fly in League with the Night brings together about 80 works and will run from November 18 to May 9. Yiadom-Boakye is known for portraits drawn not from real life but from her imagination, and we first came across her in the All Too Human survey of a century of British figurative painting at the Tate in 2018. The exhibition transfers to Moderna Museet in Stockholm in June.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery has taken a long time to reopen, but it finally does so on November 21 with an exhibition entitled Unearthed: Photography's Roots, which shows the history of photography through depictions of plants and botany. Going back 180 years, the curators trace the early use of the camera for scientific studies, move through abstraction in the early 20th century and culminate with more modern work including the eroticism of Robert Mapplethorpe. This show also runs until May 9.
It's 100 years since Noël Coward made his West End debut as a 19-year-old playwright. With West End theatres in limbo, it's time for the City of London to step in: the Guildhall Art Gallery is celebrating with a new exhibition entitled Noël Coward: Art & Style. The writer of Brief Encounter and Mad Dogs and Englishmen had a huge impact on fashion and culture in the mid-20th century, and his influence continues. This show, including previously undisplayed material, is on from November 20 to May 16.
A broad retrospective of the light-filled work of the Skagen painter Anna Ancher has been a big hit in Denmark this year. Its first run at the National Gallery in Copenhagen was cut short by the coronavirus lockdown, but it's back at the museum for an encore from November 4 to January 31.
Piet Mondrian's abstract geometric paintings make him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, and the Dutch art movement known as De Stijl that he's associated with features at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid over the winter. Mondrian and De Stijl, a collaboration with the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, runs from November 11 to March 1.
Where best to escape the pandemic? The top of a Swiss mountain, perhaps? The allure of the Alps is at the core of Wild at Heart: Romanticism in Switzerland, at the Kunsthaus in Zurich from November 13 to February 14. Swiss artists including Henry Fuseli are joined by foreigners such as Caspar David Friedrich and JMW Turner in an exhibition encompassing more than 150 works.
Do remember to take into account the latest travel restrictions and to check museum websites for up-to-date information before attempting to book for any of the exhibitions listed here. If you're allowed to leave home in the first place, that is.
Images
Edvard Munch, The Death of Marat, 1907, Munchmuseet, Oslo
Imogen Cunningham, Agave Design I, 1920s. © The Imogen Cunningham Trust
Imogen Cunningham, Agave Design I, 1920s. © The Imogen Cunningham Trust
Ford Madox Brown, Manfred on the Jungfrau,
1841/61, Manchester Art Gallery
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