The Art Exhibitions Blog

It's widely referred to as the world's most valuable private art collection : the one assembled over decades by the Nahmad brothers, dealers Ezra and David . Worth an estimated $3 billion or more, it's said to include hundreds of Picassos. Some 60 works from it are now on display at the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny as  The Nahmad Collection: From Monet to Picasso . Intended, apparently, to demonstrate how art developed from the early 19th century through Impressionism and on to the start of the modern era, towards the liberation of colour and form, this is an exhibition that ends up coming across as somewhat incoherent. We're not really told much about the Nahmads or their collecting choices -- and as you search the Internet, things become slightly mysterious: Is Ezra alive or dead? The art, presumably, is supposed to speak for itself, but it's a rather eclectic, if not confusing, selection; some of the works are fantastic, some are distinctly ho-hum.  Let...

It was by accident, not design, that we found ourselves viewing the art collection of a German-turned-Swiss arms manufacturer. On our recent trip to Paris, we were on our way to see the excellent show about the Nabis at the Musée du Luxembourg when we walked past the Musée Maillol, which was showing a loan exhibition from the Emil Bührle Collection in Zurich, with Monet, Manet, van Gogh and more. That looks interesting, we thought, let's pop in and see it on the way back. So we did, and it turned out to be very enjoyable. But back to the paintings in a minute. Because, as debate rages over the funding of art and museums, with the Sackler family now under attack for their pharmaceuticals company's role in the opioids drug-abuse crisis sweeping America, it's impossible not to acknowledge a certain degree of queasiness about the way this collection, one of the most prestigious in private hands in Europe, was built up. Emil Georg Bührle was a controversial figure who di...

Monet, Pissarro, Sisley -- names calculated to get the crowds flocking to Tate Britain for Impressionists in London . Legros, Dalou and Carpeaux -- well, probably not, but you'll be seeing more of them than you might have bargained for if you go to this rather misleadingly named exhibition. The show's subtitle is French Artists in Exile 1870-1904, which probably gives a rather better sense of what you are going to see. The story starts with the flight of artists and dealers to London in 1870-71 amid France's military defeat by Prussia and the bloody suppression of the popular uprising that was the Paris Commune. The scene is well set in the first room, which introduces us to the devastation and carnage behind the exodus. Claude Monet crossed the Channel to avoid conscription while Camille Pissarro's house was used as stables by the Prussians. There are a few works from that early period on display -- the relative lightness of a Monet view of the Thames contrasting w...