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Opening and Closing in January

Let's kick off the New Year with something a bit out of the ordinary: Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism at London's Royal Academy. This show features more than 130 works by 10 key 20th-century Brazilian artists, and most of them have never been on show in the UK before, providing a chance to look at modern art in a way that breaks from the European and North American perspective we're so used to. On from January 28 to April 21.   There are more familiar names at Bath's Holburne Museum: Francis Bacon, Peter Blake, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol among them. Iconic: Portraiture from Bacon to Warhol  focuses on the middle of the 20th century when many artists began to use photographs as sources for their paintings. The exhibition runs from January 24 to May 5.  From January 22, the Louvre in Paris offers the chance to take  A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting . Cimabue, one of the most important artists of the 13th century, was among the...
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Opening and Closing in August

One of the most stunning objects in the recently ended World of Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum was this exquisite Bronze Age golden sun pendant, uncovered in Shropshire only in 2018. The breathtaking piece is now embarking on a national tour, starting at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro from August 6 to November 5 and moving on to Lincoln, Sunderland and Stornoway over the course of the next 14 months. 
August is generally a quiet period for exhibition openings, but there are two shows starting in Germany before the end of the month that are well worth highlighting. One is a treat for enthusiasts of German Expressionism: The Museum Folkwang is marking its 100th anniversary in Essen with a show examining the history of its extensive collection of Expressionist art -- very German but banned by the Nazis as degenerate. Expressionists at Folkwang features around 250 works, including loans from elsewhere, and runs from August 20 to January 8.

It's only 40 minutes by train from Essen to Wuppertal, where the Von der Heydt Museum starts a show on August 21 devoted to how artists have perceived themselves in self-portraits since the 19th century. Strangers to Ourselves (page in German) has work from Toulouse-Lautrec, Christian Schad, Félix Vallotton, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Francis Bacon as well as contemporary artists. Until January 29. 

Last chance to see....

August 21 is your final deadline to get along to Breaking the News at the British Library in London, a thoroughly entertaining and absorbing exhibition about how news has been made and manipulated down the centuries, and full of historic front pages.
The women's Euros have brought football to an even larger audience, and for those newcomers, as well as for established fans full of expectations for the new season in this World Cup year, we can recommend Football: Designing the Beautiful Game at the Design Museum in London. The final whistle will be blown on August 29; no penalty shoot-out! 

Images

Bronze Age sun pendant, 1000-800 BC, British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Daily Express front page, June 6, 1963, British Library

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