The Art Exhibitions Blog

Do you sometimes find it's not so much the art itself as the stories behind it that make for a really enjoyable exhibition? It's certainly the case at Towner Eastbourne in  A Life in Art: Lucy Wertheim, Patron, Collector, Gallerist  and  Reuniting the Twenties Group: From Barbara Hepworth to Victor Pasmore ; these two linked shows take us well beyond the paintings and sculpture to uncover fascinating personal histories and to shine a light on the mid 20th-century art scene in Britain. And, unless you're an absolute expert in the art of the period, you'll discover many talented artists who are very unfamiliar names.  Who was Lucy Wertheim? Without formal art training but with a fair amount of money, she broke into the male-dominated British art scene and was a patron to many young artists, establishing her own gallery in London in 1930. She set up the Twenties Group -- artists in their 20s, as the name suggests -- whose work she tried to exhibit round the country, wit...

If you were asked to name the influences on Vincent van Gogh, you'd undoubtedly mention Paul Gauguin, the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, and Japanese woodcuts and prints. But the novels of Charles Dickens and the foggy streets of Victorian London? Get along to the  Van Gogh and Britain  exhibition at Tate Britain and you will indeed find that the three years Vincent spent in England from 1873 had a big impact on his taste in art and the style and subject matter of his paintings and drawings, though maybe not quite as much as the curators seem to want you to think. Van Gogh developed those writhing brushstrokes and that hugely expressive use of colour in the south of France, not south of the Thames. Van Gogh was 20 when he arrived in London to work in an art dealer's office in Covent Garden, where he stayed for two years, crossing the river each day from lodgings in Stockwell and the Oval. He later tried to earn his living from teaching and preaching before leavin...