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 ...
The Snowman has become an integral part of the British Christmas, with its come-to-life hero taking a small dressing-gowned boy for an adventure Walking in the Air . It's a 20th-century equivalent of Charles Dickens's tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. When The Snowman 's creator, Raymond Briggs, applied to go to art school at the age of 15, his interviewer was horrified to hear that he wanted to be a cartoonist. Today, he might be even more horrified to find out about Bloomin' Brilliant: The Life and Work of Raymond Briggs at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in East Sussex. Briggs, who died two years ago, lived just a mile down the road from Ditchling, in the shadow of the South Downs. This joyful celebratory show looks back on a 60-year career that also gave us Fungus the Bogeyman , Father Christmas , When the Wind Blows and the story of his parents, Ethel and Ernest . Cartoons, picture books, graphic novels, for children perhaps, but actual...