There are some familiar names and familiar paintings in Art Then! British Painting, Sculpture and Drawing, 1910-1960 at Southampton City Art Gallery, but it's the unfamiliar that makes it especially worth the trip to a venue you might not normally consider for an exhibition. This show provides an excellent overview of art trends in this country in the first half of the 20th century. And it's free! Southampton has a very good collection, but we often get the feeling that a lot of interesting works are in store behind closed doors. Pleasant surprises await when they finally see the light of the day, in this case in combination with a selection from the extensive Ingram Collection of modern British art. In all, there are more than 100 works by over 100 artists, demonstrating how the British reacted to the latest developments in art on the Continent. So let's start with a couple of hidden gems from the Southampton treasure trove, first of all a Landscape that really stoppe...
"I like either extreme novelty or things of the past," said Berthe Morisot. Just what that meant for her art is revealed in Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impresssionism , a sparkling, fresh show at Dulwich Picture Gallery in south-east London, and an exhibition that changed our view of the leading woman Impressionist. We were a little bit apprehensive on the way to Dulwich, with lingering memories of an extensive Morisot retrospective in Lille about 20 years ago that we unexpectedly found quite dull and repetitive. This new show turns out to be a bit of a revelation, focusing as it does on her fascination with and imaginative reworking of pictures by French and British 18th-century artists. And as for some of her late work.... it's so reminiscent of Edvard Munch. We certainly weren't expecting that. This Self-Portrait is the very first picture in the exhibition. Morisot painted it in her mid-40s, and it's a very self-assured picture, and a very modern one. Her palette...