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
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