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Opening and Closing in July

A very eclectic mix of shows this month, and we're starting with an exhibition that's not art at all, but of vital interest to everyone. The Science Museum is investigating the Future of Food , looking at new advances in growing, making, cooking and eating it. On from July 24 to January 4, it's free, though you need to book. Oh, and you get to see this 3,500-year-old sourdough loaf..... At the Lowry in Salford, they're offering a double bill of Quentin Blake and Me & Modern Life: The LS Lowry Collection . The show about Blake, who's written or illustrated more than 500 books, looks aimed at a family audience, while the Lowry exhibition includes borrowed works, marking the Salford arts centre's 25th anniversary. On from July 19 to January 4, and entry is again free, though you need to book a timeslot.  Another anniversary this year is the 250th of the birth of Jane Austen; among the exhibitions around the country is one in Winchester, the city where she died ...

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Opening and Closing in November

German women Expressionists at the Royal Academy in London: This may be the exhibition you've long been waiting for, or the one to make you run a mile. Making Modernism focuses on the often very vibrant work of Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin, the intense portraits and self-portraits of Paula Modersohn-Becker and the frequently harrowing prints and sculptures of Käthe Kollwitz. Most of the 65 works have never been shown in the UK before. It's on from November 12 to February 12.
A free display at the National Gallery features two JMW Turner paintings on loan from the Frick Collection in New York of the harbours at Dieppe and Cologne that the artist made on his frequent travels round Europe. Turner on Tour runs from November 3 to February 19. 

Back at Tate Britain from November 24 to February 26 is Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night, a show whose run in 2020 was curtailed by lockdown. Around 70 works are on show in a retrospective of a contemporary painter whose portraits are not of real people but fictitious characters drawn from found images or her imagination.

The Philip Mould gallery in Pall Mall will be telling the story of Sarah Biffin, born disabled in 1784 but who taught herself to draw and paint using her mouth and shoulder and established herself as a professional artist, taking commissions from royalty and the nobility. 'Without Hands': The Art of Sarah Biffin includes portraits, landscapes and still lifes and is on from November 1 to December 21. 

Sussex has played a not inconsiderable role in the development of art in Britain, and its Downs and coastline have been the inspiration for innumerable artists. Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood and Water at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester from November 12 until April 23 includes work by Turner, Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, among others. 
The touring retrospective of the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth finally makes it to Tate St Ives on November 26. Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life, which was previously to be seen in Wakefield and Edinburgh, will have a focus on Hepworth's decades in Cornwall on this leg; her home and studio are not far away. On until May 1, if you don't fancy Cornwall in winter. 

To Frankfurt now, where the Schirn Kunsthalle is staging a show on the period when the colourful fantasy world of Marc Chagall turned a shade darker. Chagall: World in Turmoil from November 4 to February 19 covers the 1930s and 40s, when the Jewish artist became increasingly concerned by the rise of the Nazis in Germany before going into exile in the US. 
As the days shorten in the northern hemisphere, there's one thing we long for: the Sun. But you can still admire a beautiful sunset, and the Kunsthalle in Bremen has collected more than a hundred of them for Sunset: A Celebration of the Sinking Sun from November 26 to April 2. Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Anna Ancher and Félix Vallotton are among the artists featured. 

We've longed to go to Samarkand, the Central Asian city on the Silk Road famed for its magnificence and the glories of its architecture. The Splendours of Uzbekistan's Oases at the Louvre in Paris will take visitors on a journey in space and time to see gold, silver, ceramics, silks and paintings, many of which are leaving Uzbekistan for the first time. November 23 to March 6. 

Last chance to see....

The exhibition at the Lighthouse in Woking highlighting the perils faced by Venice and featuring the spectacular if very different art of Canaletto & Melissa McGill ends on November 13. 

Images

Erma Bossi, Portrait of Marianne Werefkin, c. 1910, Gabriele Munter- und Johannes Eichner-Stiftung, Munich. © The Estate of Erma Bossi
William Nicholson, Whiteways Rottingdean, 1909, Private collection. © Pallant House Gallery. Photo: Barney Hindle
Marc Chagall, Bonjour Paris, 1939-42, Private collection. © VG Bild Kunst, Bonn 2022. Photo: Archives Marc et Ida Chagall

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