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...
Night is falling, and in Paris and Vienna, Berlin and New York, the clubs and cabarets are getting ready for business. There's music to be made, avant-garde art on the menu, a hint of rebellion in the air. That's the atmosphere we were hoping for in Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art , an exhibition at London's Barbican Art Gallery. So can you feel the energy, sense the vibe? Frankly, no. Keep your jacket on, they advised us at the cloakroom, it's a bit cold in there. And they were right. It's not that there's a lack of interesting material on show here; there's some compelling art and some cracking stories to tell. But sadly, it's largely a dry and clinical exhibition-going experience. Where's the music, where's the action? Where's the life? Only occasionally do you feel truly drawn in to the maelstrom of artistic experimentation. Anyway, Fremder, étranger, stranger, where shall we begin our night on the tiles? How about ...