August is always one of the quietest months for new exhibitions, and this year is no different, but we do have one big event to alert you to, as well as two splendid shows that only have weeks to run. The one major opening is Gwen John: Strange Beauties at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Running from August 1 to January 4, this is a comprehensive retrospective of the work of the woman perhaps now seen as Wales's most significant artist, born 150 years ago this year. Maybe a little too comprehensive, according to some of the reviews of the show when it was on at the National Museum in Cardiff. The exhibition goes on to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, in February and then at the end of July next year to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. We saw a rather smaller Gwen John exhibition in Chichester in 2023. Last chance to see.... Ending on August 23 is the exhibition at the Lakenhal in Leiden ...
Who were the first great English painters? The answer surely has to be Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver. They may have worked on a small, even minuscule, scale, but in the late Tudor and early Stuart periods, Hilliard and Oliver were artistic giants. Their story is told in Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard & Oliver , an exquisite, rewarding and eye-opening exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery. Portrait miniatures were big in England and in France in the late 16th century: popular with royals and the aristocracy, and with the emerging middle classes too. This wasn't so much art for public display as to express a personal relationship, perhaps indicating the recipient was in the monarch's favour, or worn to demonstrate loyalty. Or to show burning passion: This Unknown Man Against a Background of Flames , painted by Hilliard in about 1600, presumably intended this picture as a keepsake for his beloved to express his undying devotion. He...