Skip to main content

The Artists Are in Revolt

The revolution won't happen overnight, but it's coming. And it will take place in 1874, when the rebels who'll become known as the Impressionists hold their first exhibition in Paris.  To see how the Impressionists got there, and what they were rebelling against, we've come to Cologne, and the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, for an utterly enjoyable exhibition about the art of the 1860s and 70s that found official approval from the French state and from the traditionalist critics -- and the art that didn't. The show is entitled  1863 Paris 1874: Revolution in Art -- From the Salon to Impressionism , and this is the striking image that greets you as you enter, a painting that we've never seen before (it belongs to the Spanish central bank ) but which seems to sum up the entire topic for you in one go.  The Catalan artist Pere Borrell del Caso actually created this trompe l'oeil in 1874, completely independently of the Impressionists. It wasn't originally called

Subscribe to updates

Opening and Closing in July

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is reviving Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours, a show that closed after just five weeks last year due to the Covid pandemic. On from July 15 to November 27, this exhibition features more than 100 works from the museum's own outstanding Pre-Raphaelite collection; Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Holman Hunt and Millais are the big names. 
There are two new exhibitions coming to the Lightbox in Woking, a venue we always enjoy visiting. Starting on July 9, Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden are the stars of a collaboration with the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden that looks at the story of the artists' colony at Great Bardfield in Essex; more than 30 paintings and drawings will be on display. The Ingram Collection & the Fry Art Gallery: 'Bawden, Ravilious and the Art of Great Bardfield' runs until October 9. The second show, beginning on July 16, sets 20 paintings, prints and drawings of Venice and England by Canaletto alongside work from Melissa McGill's multidisciplinary public art project Red Regatta, which was presented in Venice in 2019. Canaletto and Melissa McGill: Performance and Panorama is on until November 13. 

Woking's got much to recommend it, but be honest: Wouldn't you really rather be in the south of France? There's an enticing-looking exhibition at the Musée Bonnard in Le Cannet, close to Cannes, starting on July 2 that looks at how Pierre Bonnard and other artists of his generation, including Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and Edouard Vuillard, created captivating images of childhood. Enfances rêvées: Bonnard, les Nabis et l'enfance runs until November 6 and will feature more than 80 works.

Or what about Baden-Baden this summer? The Painters of the Sacred Heart at the Frieder Burda Museum focuses on five French exponents of naïve art, most prominently Henri Rousseau and Séraphine Louis. Predominantly made up of works from a collection assembled over six decades by the late German gallery-owner Charlotte Zander, it's on from July 16 to November 20. 
At the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the spotlight is on a largely forgotten German-Swiss woman artist. Self Determined: The Painter Ottilie W. Roederstein, starting on July 20, features 75 paintings and drawings by a woman who was once renowned across Europe and America; in 1902, she was the first contemporary female artist to be represented in the Städel's collection. This show runs to October 16. 

We really loved Whistler's Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan at the Royal Academy in London earlier this year, exploring the brilliant white art that resulted from the relationship between the painter James McNeill Whistler and his model Hiffernan. If you're on the other side of the Atlantic, the good news is that you now have a chance to catch this beautiful show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington from July 3. It's on until October 10.

Last chance to see....

You have a matter of days, until July 3 in fact, to catch the excellent free show entitled Eileen Mayo: A Natural History at Towner Eastbourne revealing the wide range of art created by Mayo, better known as a model for the likes of Laura Knight and Dod Procter. The Towner also has two new exhibitions on: A Life in Art: Lucy Wertheim, Patron, Collector, Gallerist and Reuniting the Twenties Group: From Barbara Hepworth to Victor Pasmore.

The hugely atmospheric exploration of The World of Stonehenge at the British Museum in London runs until July 17, with some breathtaking objects from across the millennia in gold, bone, stone and even wood. 
  
Book now to avoid disappointment for Raphael at London's National Gallery, which ends on July 31; the final weekend is already sold out. Lots of stunning loans from Italian museums in particular are among the highlights of this exhibition which provides a full overview of Raphael's achievements in a brief but brilliant career. 

Images

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Reverie, 1868, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Henri Rousseau, Le Lion, ayant faim, se jette sur l'antilope, 1898/1905, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel. Photo: bpk/Roman März
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No 2: The Little White Girl, 1864, Tate Britain
Raphael, Bindo Altoviti, about 1516-18, National Gallery of Art, Washington


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Opening and Closing in April

The Pre-Raphaelites -- their lives, their loves and their art -- have a lasting attraction, and The Rossettis at Tate Britain has got the blockbuster feel to it, with 150 paintings and drawings. It is, surprisingly, the first ever retrospective of poet and painter Dante Gabriel at the Tate, and the biggest show of his work in two decades. It's also the largest show in 30 years of art by his wife and model Lizzie Siddal and will in addition cover the life of Romantic poet Christina Rossetti and Dante's relationships with his muses Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris. An immersive experience is promised, including spoken poetry. It's on from April 6 to September 24. There'll be some beautiful art to look at, even if we can't escape the feeling we've trodden similar ground a couple of times recently, here and there .  A very different experience will be on offer over at Tate Modern in the shape of Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life . The Swede af Klint

What's On in 2024: Surreal Impressions

In 2024, we'll be marking the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition and the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto. There'll be lots more shows focused on women artists. It's 250 years since the birth of the great German Romantic, Caspar David Friedrich, and Roy Lichtenstein was born 100 years ago. We've picked out some of the exhibitions coming up over the next 12 months that have caught our eye, and here they are, in more or less chronological order.  February Let's start at Ordrupgaard on the outskirts of Copenhagen with Impressionism and Its Overlooked Women , described by the gallery as a "magnificent exhibition featuring works from across the world". The show focuses on five female artists, including Berthe Morisot , Mary Cassatt and Eva Gonzalès , as well as some of the models who featured in the most iconic Impressionist paintings. The exhibition is on in Denmark from February 9 to May 20, after which it transfers to the Na

The Thrill of Pleasure: Bridget Riley

Prepare yourself for some sensory overload. Curves, stripes, zig-zags, wavy lines, dots, in black and white or colour. Look at many of the paintings of Bridget Riley and you're unable to escape the eerie sensation that the picture in front of you is in motion, has its own inner three-dimensional life, is not just inert paint on flat canvas, panel or plaster. It's by no means unusual to see selections of Riley's paintings on display, but a blockbuster exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh brings together 70 years of her pictures in a dazzling extravaganza of abstraction, including a recreation of her only actual 3D work, which you walk into for a perspectival sensurround experience. It's "that thrill of pleasure which sight itself reveals," as Riley once said. It's a really terrific show, and the thrill of pleasure in the Scottish capital was enhanced by the unexpected lack of visitors on the day we went to see it, with huge empty sp