The Art Exhibitions Blog

Georges Seurat devised the Neo-Impressionist painting technique popularly known as Pointillism. He didn't live long and left only a small body of work, of which seascapes were a recurring motif; a couple of dozen paintings and drawings from summers spent on the northern coast of France will be brought together for  Seurat and the Sea   at the Courtauld Gallery in London from February 13 to May 17. Lucian Freud gained recognition as one of the greatest of British portrait painters for his intensely observed works, often of nudes. From February 12 to May 4, the National Portrait Gallery is putting on  Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting , which will be the first exhibition in Britain to focus on his creations on paper, some of which have never been on public display before.   Ramses and the Pharaoh's Gold  is a travelling exhibition of treasures from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities: 180 of them, with the coffin of the long-lived Ramses II among highlig...

A lot of new shows to tell you about this month as the summer holidays end and autumn arrives, all across Europe, from medieval to digital. The big event at the National Gallery in London is  Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists , running from September 13 to February 8. Kröller-Müller was a major early collector of work by the likes of Signac, Seurat, van Gogh and van Rysselberghe, and the bulk of the exhibits here come from the museum she opened in 1938 in the eastern Netherlands.    The most fashionable queen in history? That'll be Marie Antoinette, according to the Victoria & Albert Museum. And from September 20 to March 22, you can see Marie Antoinette Style  at the V&A, exploring how she became a fashion icon whose influence has lasted for more than two centuries -- down to Dior, Chanel and Manolo Blahnik. The exhibition will have more than 250 objects, some of which have never been seen before outside Versailles.  There are ...

Take a good look at this man; he was very famous in Paris a century ago. You might think he was a magician, possibly a circus ringmaster or a fairground proprietor. Wrong on all counts; he was an anarchist, albeit one who worked for the War Ministry, and he became one of the most influential art critics and collectors in France. His name was  Félix Fénéon , and you can find out all about him and the art he championed in an absolutely splendid exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in the French capital, a show that's full of surprises and delights. Fénéon was a huge promoter of Neo-Impressionism (a description he coined), and it was the Pointillist Paul Signac who portrayed him in the painting above. That swirling, mesmerising, multi-coloured, almost psychedelic background? It was based on the pattern for a kimono in a collection of Japanese pictures that Signac owned. This was cutting-edge art in 1891, and Signac and Fénéon were at the sharp end. Fénéon is certainly a d...

Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh: Names now so mainstream that it's hard to comprehend how challenging their art was a century and more ago. One man and his deep pockets did perhaps more than anyone else to bring their work to Britain: Samuel Courtauld. His vision is being celebrated in the hugely enjoyable  Courtauld Impressionists  exhibition at London's National Gallery. Courtauld was a textile manufacturer who in the early part of the 20th century not only built up his own impressive collection of modern French art (subsequently forming the  gallery  that bears his name) but also helped fund and acquire similar works for the nation. With the Courtauld on the Strand closed for refurbishment for the next two years, there's a rare chance to admire both sets of paintings hung side by side in the National Gallery, including some of the most recognisable images in art history, revealing how much Britain is indebted to Courtauld's daring taste for the avant-garde. Cour...