What a lot of new exhibitions this October! We list well over 20 across Europe below -- many more than usual -- and have still had to leave out quite a few that we'd mention in most other months in order to keep this post to a reasonable length. Let's start at the Royal Academy in London with deep blue seas, cloudless skies, intense light and the heat of the sun. From October 2 to January 31, you can experience the excitement Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and many others felt while Painting the French Riviera . The exhibition features more than 160 exhibits from the 1870s to the 1960s, and a version of the show travels on to the Cleveland Museum of Art in March. Hmm, Renoir. Now perhaps seen as the most chocolate-boxy of the Impressionists, but without doubt the creator of some of the most recognisable images in French art of the late 19th century. Well worth stealing , and clearly the National Gallery is on to a winner with its Renoir and Love ex...
We went along to Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery expecting to gain most enjoyment from the artist's witty, whimsical early woodcuts and drawings. In fact, rather to our surprise, it was her late paintings and 3-D collages that stole the show: strange, sometimes childlike, sometimes quite sophisticated art, with a touch of the surreal and a great deal of fantasy. And often very joyful, when you consider how the last decade of Garwood's short life was marked by war, death and fatal illness. That's the decade beyond Ravilious; her first husband, Eric, died in a plane crash while working as a war artist in 1942. It's only in recent years that Tirzah's own art has started to draw attention; we first came across her in a small show at the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden back in 2019. This exhibition in south-east London is a much bigger, more comprehensive affair. And one that's been drawing crowds; we arrived at 1200 on a Tuesday and...