The Art Exhibitions Blog

New Exhibitions in June

2026-05-31T19:56:25.426+01:00

Frida Kahlo: Now, there's a name to be reckoned with. More than just a painter, a global phenomenon, a superstar who died too young. And so coming to Tate Modern on June 25 we have Frida: The Making of an Icon, surely set to be one of the most in-demand tickets in London this year. It's not so much a show about Frida, though, as about the cult of Frida: More than 30 of her works are accompanied by some 200 by contemporaries and those from later generations whom she inspired, and then there are over 200 objects exploring "Fridamania". The show had good reviews when it was on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and you've got until January 3 to catch it at the Tate.

While we're on the subject of mid 20th-century female icons whose candle burned out long before their legend ever did.... Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait starts at the National Portrait Gallery on June 4. The Hollywood star would have been 100 years old this year, and this show, running until September 6, looks back at her life and career as captured by photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Eve Arnold, as well as artists including Andy Warhol and Pauline Boty.

At the Garden Museum in Lambeth, you can travel back in time to the 1950s and the painting school and garden in Suffolk belonging to Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. Among the cast of characters: Lucian Freud, gardener Beth Chatto and cookery writer Elizabeth David. Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint is on from June 2 to September 20.

We very much enjoyed a large-scale exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea last year on the theme of Flowers. From June 5, two floors of the gallery will be given over to The Sun and the Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial. Dozens of established and newer artists feature, including Patrick Caulfield, Barbara Hepworth, William Hogarth and Bridget Riley. Among the room-filling installations is Helios, a reproduction of the Sun by Luke Jerram. Until September 8.

Taking over the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank from June 16 to October 18: Anish Kapoor, with a series of immersive works ranging from his mirror sculptures to objects coated in the world's blackest known substance. Kapoor's art can really draw you in; we enjoyed seeing a show by him at Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing a few years ago.

Joseph Wright of Derby is one of the great names of British 18th-century painting, but we didn't think he was well served by a small exhibition at the National Gallery this past winter. Don't get us wrong; the paintings were terrific, we just felt the tickets were much overpriced. The same show moves on to Derby Museum and Art Gallery, where Wright of Derby: From the Shadows can be seen free of charge from June 13 to November 1. The absolute highlight: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.

It's 100 years since the death of Claude Monet, and among the exhibitions marking the anniversary is Monet in Le Havre, which is on from June 5 to September 27 at MuMa, the splendidly located gallery at the mouth of the city's harbour. The show, with some 100 exhibits, looks at the period from 1845, when Monet moved to Le Havre with his family at the age of five, to 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition, when he made his last major series of seascapes in the port.

All the way across France to the Côte d'Azur, for a visit to the Musée Bonnard in Le Cannet, and one of Pierre Bonnard's favourite subjects: his wife Marthe washing and bathing. Les Toilettes de Marthe, with loans from collections both inside and outside France, runs from June 27 to October 31.

Metamorphoses: Ovid and the Arts opens at the Galleria Borghese in Rome on June 23. The exhibition explores how the classical poetry of Ovid has inspired artists for 2,000 years, and it comes from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it had some excellent reviews. Correggio, Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens, and Poussin are among the artists featured. Until September 20.

Last chance to see....

June 7 is the final day to see Avant-Garde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany at Museum Barberini in Potsdam, an absorbing exploration of how the Impressionist movement crossed the Rhine. We saw the first run of the exhibition last autumn at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden.

And you've got until June 21 to see the astonishing paintings of the recently rediscovered 17th-century artist from the Southern Netherlands, Michaelina Wautier, at the Royal Academy in London. Generations said her work couldn't have been painted by a woman, but they were wrong....

Images

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art, University of Texas, Austin
Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), Tsunami, 2018. Photograph: Dave Morgan. © Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2026
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Femme à la toilette or La Cheminée, 1916, Fondation Pauline, Switzerland. © ag images
Michaelina Wautier (c. 1614-1689), Portrait of a Military Commander (Pierre Wautier?), about 1660, Private collection

Van Dyck: International Portraitist Extraordinaire

2026-05-30T11:27:27.282+01:00

Why did King Charles I bring Anthony van Dyck to London as his court painter in 1632? Well, van Dyck could make you look magnificent, every inch a monarch. He'd portrayed the ruling elite in all their sumptuous finery in Rome, Genoa, Brussels and The Hague, and the results were stunning. Van Dyck has the reputation of being the best portraitist in Europe in the early 17th century, and if you want to know why, make an effort to get to the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa to see Van Dyck, the European, a superlative exhibition about a superlative painter.

This is what Charles was paying van Dyck's high prices for: that impression of regal might (and no expense spared on the fashionable outfits or coiffure either). The figures of the King and his Queen, Henrietta Maria, are about lifesize and feel incredibly real, even four centuries later.

Of course, just in case you didn't recognise His Royal Highness, there's his golden crown, sceptre and orb on the table behind him. Though we're not told about it in Genoa, van Dyck reworked the pose from a painting by his predecessor at court, Daniel Mytens, which appears awkward in comparison.

This double portrait is not a painting you get to see every day: It's normally to be found in the collection of the Archbishopric of Olomouc in the Czech Republic (Why? Well, back in 1673, about a quarter of a century after Charles's execution, the Prince-Bishop of the time acquired part of the royal collection via some art dealers in Cologne....). But this is one of the joys of this exhibition; they've brought together paintings from across Europe from van Dyck's extensive oeuvre. And it is extensive; in Brussels and London in 1635, he was finishing a painting a week (though finishing must have been very much the operative word; members of his workshop will surely have done much of the preparatory painting, with prices rising depending on how much of a final touch the master added.)

And of course, as well as grandeur and glamour, van Dyck could do tenderness. Here are Princesses Elizabeth and Anne, the daughters of Charles and Henrietta Maria, painted in 1637. Anne was born in March that year, so she can have only been a few months old. Babies are notoriously difficult to paint, but this sketch is amazingly lifelike and animated.

Van Dyck started young; he may have already had his first studio in Antwerp at the age of 14 or 15, and the very first picture you see is an astoundingly assured Self-Portrait at that age, characterised by broad, quick brushstrokes. Below is another early self-portrayal from not very much later.

Standing in front of this canvas we felt those penetrating eyes were weighing us up. He certainly gives little about himself away: The clothing is not notable or glamorous, although his dark hat does appear to be at a jaunty angle. There are no late self-portraits in this show; the fantastic van Dyck with a sunflower hasn't made the trip.

But there is a painting of his wife, Mary Ruthven, who looks every bit Lady van Dyck (Charles knighted him as well as appointing him court painter). She wears a gorgeous gown, pearls and other accoutrements. Her hair was done in the latest fashion with a large area of forehead bare. Shaving or plucking the hairs out achieved this look.... ouch.

It has to be said that she does look rather pleased with herself. She was more than 20 years younger than the artist and from a Scottish Catholic family (you can see her holding up a rosary). Tradition has it that the marriage was encouraged by the King to end the artist's clandestine relationship with another courtier, Margaret Lemon. Mary gave birth to a daughter in December 1641, but van Dyck died just eight days later; he was only 42.

He'd packed a lot into his career. This very well laid-out show (one of the curators is Katlijne Van der Stighelen, recent rediscoverer of Michaelina Wautier) takes you carefully through the artist's life and travels, focusing on Antwerp, Genoa and London. An early Antwerp painting, made for an English patron and now in Dulwich Picture Gallery, is Samson and Delilah, demonstrating his taste for the theatrical.

Look at those female faces in the background, watching on as Delilah holds up a finger to say sssh. And look also at the dirt on the soles of Samson's feet.

You see the same theatricality in many of the portraits, such as this absolutely splendid Young General in Armour, painted somewhere in Italy in the early 1620s. The detail on the breastplate is stunning.

Now for one of the real highlights of this exhibition. Meet the Giustiniani Longo brothers, from a noble Genoese family: Alessandro, Vincenzo and Francesco Maria.

Their extravagant richly coloured outfits, the grandiose setting and their elegant poses are most eye-catching, but van Dyck has cleverly interwoven their figures and movements in a new style of portraiture to show their personalities. And he's also alluded to their little brother, Luciano, who died prematurely. On the bottom step sit two crows, omens of death, and Francesco Maria, still in the skirt-like garment worn by small children, is also holding a small bird.

This painting is actually from London's National Gallery (though we don't recall ever seeing it) and was previously thought to depict members of a different Genoese family; new research ahead of this exhibition has led to the changed identification.

Back in Antwerp, Jacob de Witte and His Wife Maria Nutius chose the black-and-white, restrained look. But the quality of the cloth and the preciseness of the large ruffs leaves the viewer in no doubt that they were very wealthy indeed.

There's one room towards the end of the exhibition (just before you get to the religious art that, as so often, didn't quite move us as it was intended to), which is filled with a range of almost overwhelmingly opulent full-length portraits. Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page, bigger than lifesize, presents an image of rank and political importance; she might be wearing widow's weeds, but what weeds! She does appear unnaturally tall, but that only enhances her significance.

Wealth and status: a major preoccupation in Genoa, a city built on trade, shipping and finance. This woman, possibly Maria Chiavari Durazzo, is attired to dazzle: Her striking peacock-blue dress has no less than 14 lines of gold braid and she has a very sizeable ruff. Again, she appears to have the height of a basketball player.... Feet on an Oriental carpet, she sits between huge columns, symbols of stability.

Impressed? We were! A contender for best exhibition of the year.

Practicalities

Van Dyck, the European is on at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa until July 19. It's open Mondays from 1400 to 1900 and the rest of the week from 1000 to 1900 (Fridays until 2000). Full-price tickets cost a standard 15 euros; you can book them online here with a timeslot, though there's an extra 1.50-euro charge for doing so. Tickets allowing you not to specify a timeslot cost a couple of euros more. There was no ticket queue when we went on a wet Sunday lunchtime, though we were told they were seeing fewer visitors than usual that day because of a major event in the city. We spent nearly two hours in the exhibition.

The Palazzo Ducale is situated on the eastern edge of Genoa's historic medieval and Renaissance centre, backing on to the Piazza De Ferrari. It's about 20 minutes walk from either of the main rail stations in Genoa, Brignole or Piazza Principe; you could take the single-line Metro from either to De Ferrari station.

Images

Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, 1632 or 1633, Archbishopric of Olomouc, Czech Republic

Anthony van Dyck, Princesses Elizabeth and Anne, 1637, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait, 1615-17, Rubenshuis, Antwerp
Anthony van Dyck, Mary Ruthven (Lady van Dyck), 1640, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c. 1618-20, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Anthony van Dyck, Young General in Armour, c. 1622-25, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anthony van Dyck, Alessandro, Vincenzo and Francesco Maria Giustiniani Longo, c. 1626-27, National Gallery, London

Anthony van Dyck, Jacob de Witte and His Wife Maria Nutius, c. 1628-29, The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp

Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Genoese Lady, Possibly Maria Chiavari Durazzo, c. 1626-27, Collezione Odescalchi, Rome

'Too Bold to Have Been Painted by a Woman'

2026-05-19T12:51:01.672+01:00

So the question to ask about the Michaelina Wautier exhibition at the Royal Academy in London must be: Is the hype about this recently rediscovered 17th-century woman painter justified? The answer: Yes, absolutely.

She really does merit acknowledgement -- and not just because we recognise a woman working in a man's world. Her art shows she was extremely talented, producing superb canvases covering a diverse range of subject matter. What's more, she painted very large pictures featuring male nudes, such as Bacchus, despite her contemporaries thinking that was not the sort of thing a female artist could do. And her portraits are wonderfully lively and lifelike.

This is Martino Martini, an Italian Jesuit missionary who travelled to China in the 1640s. It was painted in 1654, when Michaelina was around 40. Martini, who was staying at the Jesuit College in Brussels, is depicted wearing traditional Chinese silk court attire and a hat of fur and feathers. A rather substantial fellow with a great beard. He's not looking at us but his eyes really do draw our attention. It's something you can't miss throughout this show -- the eyes, contributing greatly to the vivacity of Wautier's portraiture.

The first painting you come across in the exhibition is how Michaelina saw herself about four years earlier in a Self-Portrait. Wautier is at the easel with her palette, just beginning a picture -- the canvas really is bare, a neat trick -- but even though she's working, she wears a white silk dress and pearls that today we might think look more appropriate for a meeting with lady friends in 17th-century Brussels. The refinement of her garments shows her social status as well as her professional standing, and it underlines how skilled she was at depicting textures, fabrics and objects; the pearls catch the light.

Judith Leyster had painted herself in her finery at the easel a couple of decades before, as we saw recently in the show of often forgotten 17th- and 18th-century Dutch and Flemish female artists at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent. But Wautier's is a big self-portrait, bigger than any we saw there. Perhaps fitting, because of all the pictures we saw in Ghent, Wautier's painting of Two Girls as Saints Agnes and Dorothea was probably the star turn.

It's only in the last couple of decades that Wautier has been rescued from obscurity. Her paintings were hidden away, or attributed to other artists, such as her brother Charles. We know she was born in Mons in the Spanish Netherlands in about 1614, we know she worked in Brussels along with Charles in the 1640s and 1650s, and we know that some of her paintings were acquired by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who later took them back to Vienna with him. But apart from that, there are few records of her life. She was written out of art history.

But what an omission, because it's the vivacity and realism in her pictures that truly impresses. In her portraits, as we saw with Martini, there's a glint in the eyes of her sitters. We noticed the iris in each eye seems slightly different. Just look at the wrinkles, especially on the brows, and the double chin in the Portrait of a Military Commander (Pierre Wautier?), from about 1660. It's presumed to be one of Wautier's brothers, who served as a cavalry captain in the Spanish army. But there's no flattery here.... this is the real man.

Sadly, the fine details can't be fully appreciated in our photos. But when you see the painting close up, you notice the different textures in the commander's outfit. The white collar looks like it is made of delicate fabric, and in the sheen of the armour are reflections of what was behind him -- just as you would expect from the metalwork. Wautier has recreated in paint the fine twisted edge round the armhole and that fancy red and gold trim at the bottom edge of the painting. And that sleeve -- the bulges look like thick leather, yet the surface has that softness of suede. And on top of that, there's a sense of drama and immediacy in the pose.

And here's another man whose face looks as if he has just been caught on camera.

The wrinkles on his forehead, those penetrating eyes and the immediacy of his pose look so natural. Then you notice the individual hairs of the fur on the bag slung over his back and the ornate gold pattern on the red straps. Carved into the rock behind him is the inscription "Rachel vaut bien la peine" -- "Rachel is well worth the effort" -- identifying him with Jacob from the Biblical Book of Genesis, who had to work as a shepherd for 14 years before being able to marry Rachel, his beloved. There's no known precedent in art for this, a "historicised portrait" of Jacob, which may well refer to the sitter's own tale of a lengthy love story.

So Wautier showed that not only did she have the skill, she had the creativity to be original. "Invenit et fecit," as she would sign other history paintings, such as The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine or The Education of the Virgin. Now, though we're not big fans of religious paintings in general, we did appreciate the liveliness of Wautier's young Mary in the latter. Another painting, The Annunciation, Wautier's last-known dated work, is rather more Baroque; what's troubling is that her prominently placed signature was painted over and only revealed during conservation in 1983.

Wautier's portrayals of children are quite stunning. We were much taken by Boys Blowing Bubbles, her version of the popular theme symbolising the fragility of life. Here, the eyes have it again, with the lad on the right fixed intently on the bubble, setting a fine example for players of ball sports centuries later.

These two faces reappear in one of Wautier's most distinctive works, The Five Senses, which only resurfaced at auction in 2019. Five light-hearted depictions of childhood, the series has helped provide insights into Wautier's methods; she worked quickly in oil, often applying successive strokes of paint that mixed on the canvas. She blended colours to provide an optical illusion of blue instead of relying on costly blue pigment.

The egg in this boy's left hand hints at which sense this is portraying. But just in case you miss that clue, the cute-faced lad holds his nose.

And there's no prize for identifying the sense below. Another butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth youngster is about to eat a slice of bread with a "tasty" topping on it.

The climax of the exhibition is the sort of picture that was thought to be "too bold" for a woman to paint. The Triumph of Bacchus is her biggest and most ambitious work; well, as far as we know to date. And it is big: 270 by 354 cm. You really are struck by the size as you approach it.

One would not have expected female artists to be painting male nudes in the 17th century. Back in 1903, Gustav Glück, later to become the first curator of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, said that "even in our age of female emancipation, one would hardly wish to ascribe this picture, which shows a highly vigorous, almost coarse conception, to a woman's hand."

Yet here it is, full of naked or near-naked men, with Bacchus's modesty (or the viewer's modesty, to be more accurate) preserved by a strategically placed vine leaf. And looking straight out at you from the right-hand side, the only character facing the audience in this Bacchanalian revel, is Michaelina Wautier herself. It's pretty astonishing.

Now, the one thing you don't get in this show is the amazing story of how Wautier has been recovered from oblivion. It was in 1993 that Belgian art historian Katlijne van der Stighelen found The Triumph of Bacchus lying on the floor of the storehouse of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. She has spent three decades tracking down her works. We'd have liked to read a bit more of that in the exhibition, but strangely it's not much touched on. Odd, that.

Since her rediscovery, Wautier has sometimes been compared with the greatest woman artist of the Baroque, Artemisia Gentileschi. We thought she was certainly a much more interesting portrait painter than Artemisia. Better overall? You'll have to go along to the Royal Academy to make up your own mind.

Practicalities

Michaelina Wautier is on at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly in central London until June 21. It's open Tuesday to Sunday from 1000 to 1800, extended on Friday until 2100. Sunday mornings are apparently among the quietest times to visit. Full-price tickets are £17.50 including a Gift Aid donation, £15 without. You can book in advance here. Allow a good 75 minutes to take this show in fully. The RA is a few minutes' walk from Green Park and Piccadilly Circus Tube stations.

Images

Michaelina Wautier (c. 1614-1689), Portrait of Martino Martini, 1654, The Klesch Collection

Michaelina Wautier, Portrait of a Military Commander (Pierre Wautier?), about 1660, Private collection

Michaelina Wautier, Portrait of a Man as the Biblical Jacob, about 1655, Private collection

Michaelina Wautier, Boys Blowing Bubbles, about 1650-55, Seattle Art Museum
Michaelina Wautier, Smell, 1650, Rose-Marie and Eijk Van Otterloo Collection
Michaelina Wautier, Taste, 1650, Rose-Marie and Eijk Van Otterloo Collection

Michaelina Wautier, The Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1655-59, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Photo: © KHM-Museumsverband

Men Behaving Badly; Women and Children Too

2026-05-02T19:08:00.000+01:00

When we visit the Netherlands or come across the Dutch abroad, we always feel they know how to relax and enjoy life. Visit Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and you'll see in their latest exhibition that this joie de vivre has a long tradition. The gallery is looking back 400 years to the birth in the city of Jan Steen, who frequently painted his countrymen having a good time. And yes, on occasion, perhaps just a little bit too much of a good time.

In this show, At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking, you will discover why the Dutch use the expression "a Jan Steen household" for a home where, well, things are maybe just a bit too free and easy. This is the painting that sums it up: What a jolly time everyone is having in The Merry Family. To the accompaniment of music, they are indeed making merry: singing, drinking and smoking. All are taking part; the old, the young, and even a baby wielding a spoon. The baby's not partaking of the alcohol or tobacco, admittedly, but the other youngsters are following their elders' example. And the dog doesn't want to be left out.

Steen's comic scene, however, carries a moral: The sheet of paper pinned to the mantelpiece bears the inscription: "As the old sing, so shall the young twitter." Still, The Merry Family do uphold certain standards (this is Holland after all): Look at the wonderful creases in the nicely washed and ironed tablecloth.

Steen liked a moral tale, the fun and games disguising a lot of bad behaviour, of various sorts. This next painting is called The Merry Threesome in English, and they're all amusing themselves in their different ways. The unsuspecting well-dressed man (though in rather old-fashioned costume) is lapping up the attention of a pretty young woman (you'll note the suggestively positioned pipe). Her aged accomplice plies him with another drink, but he will soon discover he has been the victim of a dastardly crime: The girl is slipping her hand unnoticed into his purse. The Dutch title translates as The Robbed Violinist.

Steen depicted himself as the unwary musician with the silly grin. This was one of various roles he assumed in his pictures. His children, spouses and friends were also models and he often was inspired by the inns he grew up in and later ran, during something of an itinerant career in various towns and cities across Holland. Leiden's most famous son -- Rembrandt -- also portrayed himself on canvas frequently. Steen, though, had a different agenda.

He painted himself again, as a laughing man in an opulent interior, enjoying oysters and a glass of wine, while in the background through an open door a couple of men play a backgammon-like game of chance. That one's called 'Easy Come, Easy Go'.

More reprehensible behaviour in the painting below, and unfortunately, it's a poor little kitten that's the victim. The boys delight in making it dance on its hind legs to the tune played by the girl. And the barking excited dog no doubt adds to its fears. An old man peering in through a window looks on disapprovingly.

Kids, eh? What they need is an education. Though maybe not with Mr Grumpy, who's got his wooden spoon ready to rap them over the knuckles if they don't get it right. The poor lad in blue in the centre of the picture is clearly having a torrid time, snivelling away. "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times," teacher seems to be saying. The girl (modelled on Eva, Steen's eldest daughter) looks on quite concerned; will it be her turn for the spoon next?

One child in a red cap seems to have had enough and is already off home. But there's always the class swot, doggedly getting on with his own work like the lad in the foreground.

Anyway, when St Nicholas comes (not at Christmas, but at the start of December, this being Holland), he'll know whether you've been naughty or nice. And there will be tears before bedtime....

The festivities are well under way; there are sweets, gingerbread and baked treats. The little girl in the foreground is delighted by her new doll (it's John the Baptist; this is a Catholic family, like Steen's), and her brother seems pleased with his stick for kolf, a golf-like game. But the lad on the left hasn't got anything to laugh about; the shoe he's left out for presents has only got a birch twig in it.

Amid all this overexcitement, let's turn to something calmer. The woman smiles gently as she plays the cittern, a popular string instrument of the Golden Age, smaller than a lute. It's a painting in which Steen has paid great attention to a meticulous reproduction of the details of the face and hands and the cittern itself.

She's dressed very respectably, very soberly, hair covered by a hood. That coy smile, though, is rather provocative, isn't it? If you were a 16th-century Dutchman, or Dutchwoman, you might be thinking: Is she quite decent?

But if you knew your Bible you'd be certain of what was going on in the picture below. To us, this scene at first appears to depict an extended family's day out in the countryside, until we notice the empty chest on the right.

Then there's the man in armour, spears pointing into the sky and two camels. Something does appear to have gone missing, as two men on the left are also looking for something. It is actually a scene from the Book of Genesis, Laban Searching for the Idols Stolen by Rachel. The camels highlight the point in the story that Rachel is sitting on a camel's saddlebag in which she has hidden the religious items she has stolen from her father. Her large blue skirt and pink flowing cloak plus the toddler in her arms cover the booty. And she can't get up, because she's menstruating. Zoom in on the picture of this painting on the Lakenhal website and you may also get the impression that the camel on the right has the look of knowing exactly what's going on.

There's a whole lot more to enjoy in this entertaining show, with plenty of explanation of Steen's career and quite a few paintings by relatives and colleagues. It's not an all-encompassing retrospective -- the paintings seem to have been sourced only from Dutch collections -- but it's well worth a visit.

Practicalities

At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking is on at Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden until August 23. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday from 1000 to 1700. Full-price tickets, which include the permanent collection and other displays, cost 16 euros and can be booked online here. Allow yourself 90 minutes for this show, which was reasonably busy, though not packed, when we visited on a Friday morning. The Lakenhal collection is surprisingly light on classic Dutch Golden Age paintings; the highlight is perhaps Lucas van Leyden's early 16th-century triptych of the Last Judgement.

The Lakenhal, as you might expect, overlooks a canal on Oude Singel in the centre of Leiden, and it's just 10 minutes walk from Leiden Centraal rail station, with frequent connections from all over the Netherlands. Leiden is just over half an hour from Amsterdam, a quarter of an hour or less from The Hague.

And later this year....

There'll be a small free Steen exhibition featuring international loans at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, which has two canvases by him. Jan Steen: Sacred and Profane starts on November 21.

Images

Jan Steen (1626-1679), The Merry Family, 1668, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Jan Steen, The Merry Threesome, c. 1670-72, Private collection on long-term loan to Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden
Jan Steen, Children Teaching a Cat to Dance, c. 1660-79, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Steen, The Strict Schoolmaster, c. 1658-70, Private collection
Jan Steen, The Feast of St Nicholas, c. 1665-68, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Jan Steen, Woman Playing the Cittern, c. 1662, Mauritshuis, The Hague

Jan Steen, Laban Searching for the Idols Stolen by Rachel, c. 1661, Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden

New Exhibitions in May

2026-04-30T08:06:00.001+01:00

This month's star turn in London has to be James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain, apparently the first major retrospective in Europe in 30 years and featuring 150 works. There's no doubting Whistler's position as one of the most influential of late 19th-century painters; just how often have you seen other artists alluding to his portrayal of his mother, the Arrangement in Grey and Black, in their work? On at the Tate from May 21 to September 27, and then at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from mid-October. For a taster, here's a reminder of a smaller Whistler show at the Royal Academy in 2022.

One of the greatest names in Spanish 17th-century art is Francisco de Zurbarán. We have to admit, many of his religious paintings leave us cold, but he's also known for his portraits and still lifes. The first major exhibition devoted to him in the UK takes place at the National Gallery from May 2 to August 23. Zurbarán will have almost 50 paintings, including the unmistakable and much-reproduced Agnus Dei or A Lamb from the Prado. The exhibition moves on to the Louvre in early October and then to the Art Institute of Chicago in late February 2027.

Kew Gardens is staging the largest ever presentation of outdoor sculptures by Henry Moore, with 30 monumental artworks installed throughout the grounds and more than 90 smaller-scale works indoors. Henry Moore: Monumental Nature is on from May 9 to January 31.

Winston Churchill took lifelong pleasure in painting as a pastime, finding it a constant source of joy and relief from the pressures of politics and government. The Wallace Collection is staging the first major retrospective of his work since his death in 1965, with over 50 pictures, more than half from private collections. Winston Churchill the Painter runs from May 23 to November 29.

And at the Philip Mould gallery in Pall Mall, there's a free exhibition from May 14 to July 10 entitled Elizabeth I: Queen & Court, exploring how portraiture was used as a tool of power during the reign of the last Tudor queen. Exhibits include the earliest life-size full-length portrait of Elizabeth.

Off to East Sussex now, and initially to Charleston in Lewes, where they're staging the first major exhibition devoted to a pioneering woman artist, Gladys Hynes (1888-1958) and, at the same time, a show focusing on Walter Sickert's works on paper. Both Gladys Hynes: Radical Lives and Walter Sickert: Working Notes are on from May 2 to October 11.

And just a short train ride away in Eastbourne, the Towner presents Comrades in Art: Artists against Fascism, highlighting the 1930s grouping set up to oppose fascist movements across Europe. While the founding members may not be so well known, prominent supporters included Laura Knight and Paul Nash. This show, at one of our favourite venues, runs from May 7 to October 18.

In West Sussex, Pallant House in Chichester presents British Landscapes: A Sense of Place, featuring more than 60 artists from the late 18th century to the end of the 20th. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Barbara Hepworth, Ivon Hitchens, Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland are some of the big names. May 30 to November 1.

We spent a day in Bruges just a couple of weeks ago, exploring a city that was one of the great mercantile centres of the Middle Ages. And that history is the theme of the opening show at the new exhibition centre there, which goes by the name of Brusk. They're bringing artworks, manuscripts and objects from all over the world to Flanders for what they call "an invitation to take a broader look at history and globalisation". Bigger Picture: Connected Worlds of Bruges 900-1550 is on from May 8 to September 6.

In Paris, the Grand Palais is devoting an exhibition to Hilma af Klint, the Swedish woman who pioneered abstraction in art at the very start of the 20th century, though her work remained unknown for decades after her death. May 6 to August 30.

We've had young Rembrandt, we've had late Rembrandt. Time to get very specific, with the artist at the age of 25 or 26 in Rembrandt 1632: Creation of a Brand at Wilhelmshöhe Palace in Kassel from May 8 to August 9. That was the year he moved from his home town of Leiden to find fame and fortune in Amsterdam. The exhibition moves on to another German venue, Friedenstein Castle in Gotha, from September 5 to December 6.

Three centuries on, and in 1932 Germany's chaotic post-war experiment with democracy was approaching its end. A period of economic gloom and rapid cultural change also saw the rise of the Nazis. From May 12 to September 27 at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, A Long-Distance Call: Scenes from the Weimar Republic delves into stories from the era, featuring artists including Christian Schad, Jeanne Mammen and Gabriele Münter.

At the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, they're honouring the art dealer Paul Cassirer, one of the key figures who introduced the French Impressionists into Germany. More than 100 works will be on show in Cassirer and the Breakthrough of Impressionism from May 22 to September 27, with Degas, Manet, Monet and Renoir among the highlights.

Norwegian chocolate: perhaps not the most obvious adjective-noun combination in the food universe. But wait! Let's throw Edvard Munch into the mix.... In 1923, for the Freia chocolate plant in Oslo, Munch painted the first-ever decorative artworks to be commissioned for a factory. They're being transferred to the Munch Museum in the city for Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory, which is on from May 21 to October 11 and will also take a look at the broader social context of the time and Munch's interest in making art for public spaces. The big question is: Did Edvard get to munch on free samples?

Staying in Oslo, let's head to the National Museum for Asta Nørregaard: Truth and Beauty. Born in 1853, 10 years before Munch, Nørregaard became the most renowned portrait painter of her day, but this is the first museum exhibition devoted to her work. It runs from May 28 to October 18.

Toledo Cathedral is an astounding sight at any time, but this year they're marking its 800th anniversary with an exhibition bringing together 350 works of art -- paintings, sculptures, tapestries and more -- with El Greco, Velázquez and Zurbarán among the star attractions. Entitled Primada, reflecting the cathedral's claim to primacy in the Iberian peninsula, it's on from May 25 to October 14.

Last chance to see....

Bridget Riley's just turned 95 and she's still going strong. Experience her mesmerising Op Art in an engrossing free exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate, Bridget Riley: Learning to See, until May 4.

You've got until May 10 to catch Joseph Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery in London. Some stunning paintings, but expensive for what it is. See the same show for free at Derby Museum & Art Gallery from mid-June.

May 10 is also the last day for the William Nicholson retrospective at Pallant House in Chichester, with glittering still lifes perhaps the highlight.

Closing on May 17 at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid is the retrospective of late 19th- and early 20th-century Swedish painter Anders Zorn: Travelling the World, Remembering the Land.

And another exhibition in Madrid, this time shutting its doors on May 31, features Zorn's close Danish contemporary, Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens, at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. It reopens at the Kunsthaus in Zurich at the start of July.

In Ghent, May 31 is also the last day for Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750, a show at the Museum of Fine Arts that puts dozens of disregarded female artists back on the mainstream art-historical record.

And on the very same day, the Marquess of Rockingham's Scrub reaches the finish line in Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse, a small free exhibition at the National Gallery in London that's definitely worth a few minutes of your time.

Images

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871, Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Cap d’Ail, Alpes-Maritimes, 1952, Royal Academy of Arts, London. © Churchill Heritage Ltd; Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts, London; Photographer: John Hammond
Anonymous artist, copy after Rogier van der Weyden (about 1399-1464), Portrait of Philip the Good, 2nd half of 15th century, Musea Brugge, Bruges
Käte Hoch (1873-1933), Portrait of Dr E Müller-Kamp, 1929, Lenbachhaus Munich
Asta Nørregaard (1853-1933), Marthine Cappelen Hjort, née Kiær (detail), 1897, Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo. Photo: Nasjonalmuseet/Jacques Lathion

Michaelina Wautier (c. 1614-1689), Two Girls as Saints Agnes and Dorothea, c. 1650, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) -- Flemish Community Collection

Gone but No Longer Forgotten -- the Women of Ghent

2026-04-27T11:28:00.001+01:00

How was it that all but a few women artists became excised from art history? It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of them around, making stunning paintings, and lots of money, particularly in the Low Countries in the 17th and 18th century. Art history is of course now being rewritten, to rescue the forgotten from oblivion. To find out what happened and how the record is being put right, you should go to Ghent to see Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750 at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Michaelina Wautier is a case in point: a woman who could compete on her own terms with the Baroque masters of the southern Netherlands, but whose work was disregarded or attributed to men until the last couple of decades. Wautier may well be the biggest rediscovery among forgotten women painters in recent years -- she's got an exhibition of her own on now at the Royal Academy in London -- and one of her pictures is among the stand-out works at this show in the heart of Flanders.

It's not just a portrait of two young girls, it's a religious painting at the same time; on the left are a basket of apples surrounded by roses, the traditional attributes of St Dorothea, who carries a palm leaf to indicate her martyrdom, while at the bottom right is a lamb, representing St Agnes. It's an ambitious painting, from the very top tier in the hierarchy of genres -- still lifes and portraits being seen at that epoch as far less significant than historical themes. And beautifully rendered. There's another Wautier, Boy with Tobacco, elsewhere in the show.

Wautier turns up early on in this very extensive exhibition -- there are nearly 150 objects created by more than 40 women artists -- but let's cut next to the final picture on display, with two little boys, probably twins, playing at being soldiers, rather than two small girls posing as saints. It's by the Antwerp painter Johanna Vergouwen, who also worked as an art dealer and was praised for her output in her own time.

Vergouwen really seems to have had a feminine touch. Yes, the two lads (aged about 8, though they look younger) are soldiers, with their armour and swords and riding off on a hobby horse to war. But Vergouwen seems to have captured a certain sweet side to their character, with those faces under the wonderfully feathered headgear and above the flowing skirts in delicate shades. As the audioguide points out, however, even though Vergouwen signed and dated this painting, art connoisseurs in later centuries were less interested in her than in the identity of the boys (one of whom, if the identification is accurate, rejoiced in the unfortunate name of Everhard Kockman).

Let's head north from Flanders to Holland, to encounter Judith Leyster; she was from Haarlem, like Frans Hals. We see her early on with a very confident self-portrait, as might be expected from a woman good enough to join the Guild of St Luke, the artists' trade association. This is another painting from around the same time, when she was about 20, depicting a woman getting on diligently with the very virtuous act of sewing, trying to ignore the fact that she's being bothered by a man who seems to be offering her money....

Leyster's career stalled when she got married to another Haarlem painter, Jan Miense Molenaer, and had a house and their business to run and five children to bring up. She kept her hand in with flower paintings, one of which is in the show. Posterity would attribute her work to Hals or Molenaer, but Leyster is now possibly the most famous woman painter of the Dutch Golden Age, though Rachel Ruysch, who's also represented here with some still lifes, might give her a run for her money.

When it came to still-life paintings, women could compete on equal terms with the men -- and in fact, those depictions of cut flowers were often where the money was in the 17th-century Netherlands (though they were looked down on as lesser works in later centuries). And it wasn't just botanical wonders; how about Still Life with Cheeses and Crayfish by Clara Peeters? Just look at the details: the texture of the cheese, the light and reflections in the filled wine glass, the softness of the white bread roll with its golden crust and and the knife on the edge of the table that appears to be slanting out of the canvas.

The Antwerp-based Peeters was one of the great exponents of the food still life and an innovator in the genre; we can remember her starring in a show on the theme at the Mauritshuis a few years ago. And, if you want to compare and contrast with her male contemporaries, we've picked out a couple of works by Floris van Dijck (he seemed to like lots of fruit) and Pieter Claesz. It's worth remembering though, that many women didn't get the chance to train on painting real people from life; Peeters's only known work featuring a prominent human figure, on show in Ghent, comes across as extremely awkward.

Now, oddly, we don't really get to learn anything about this next painting, the poster image for the exhibition, with surely one of the most bizarre pieces of headgear you'll ever see in historic art. (This may be the moment to mention that individual wall captions for the artworks contain only the bare minimum of info; you're reliant on the audioguide, which doesn't cover every piece, for commentary).

It's a self-portrait by Princess Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, who grew up in The Hague in the early 17th century (take a look at the link for biographical details), and it's one of a number of striking paintings by her on display in Ghent. There's a portrait of her sister Sophia in a Brazilian cape, as well as another self-portrait apparently after a painting by her teacher Gerard van Honthorst. But in her mid-30s, Louise left the court in secret, converted to Catholicism, became a nun and went on to be an abbess at a convent in France. And she continued to paint; you can see a self-portrait as a Benedictine sister; same face, but a black-and-white habit has replaced the gorgeous and curious headgear.

Our next painting exemplifies how women artists were erased from the record. It's Young Woman Accepting Grapes from a Boy by Maria Schalcken, the sister and pupil of Godefridus Schalcken, a genre painter who was an apprentice of Samuel van Hoogstraten and later studied under Gerrit Dou, and who was highly successful in his lifetime.

The name Schalcken appears as a signature at the top left of this picture, but the first name has been obliterated. It was long attributed to Godefridus and only recognised as the work of Maria 20 years ago. The only other painting certainly known to be by her -- a self-portrait at the easel -- is also in this show. There must surely be others.

These are only a handful of the artists in this exhibition, which is fascinating, if a little frustrating. Clearly, we don't know biographical details for many, but you're also not given that much info about artists who are well documented when you really want to find out more (rather oddly, we had a very similar experience in a show about women artists at the Arp Museum a couple of years ago). And then there's nothing at all revealed about one or two of the most intriguing artworks, such as how it came to pass that a woman artist called Katharina Pepijn painted an abbot in Catholic Flanders in the 1650s.

Let's end with a picture that we couldn't resist putting in. Two of the most scary and feared animals are clearly in a battle, even if amid the deadly drama there's something of a feeling that this is an image Dr Seuss might have concocted. The caiman is defending her two eggs, one of which has already been attacked by the snake coiled around her tail. This work by Maria Sibylla Merian, who travelled to South America in her 50s at the very end of the 17th century, is a masterpiece of scientific observation as well as an artwork of the highest order, filled with magical colours and patterns.

So much to see and remember in this show in Ghent: Go if you get the chance.

Practicalities

Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750 is on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent until May 31. The museum is open from 0930 to 1730 Tuesdays to Fridays, from 1000 to 1800 at weekends and on school holidays, and until 2200 on the first Thursday of the month. We spent several hours in the exhibition; allow yourself plenty of time. Full-price tickets cost 19 euros, and you can book online in advance here. Make sure you download the audioguide to your phone (you can borrow headphones) to make up for the lack of captions. It's informative, though we found it rather clunky to use.

The gallery is situated on Fernand Scribedreef, a half-hour on foot south of Ghent's historic centre and about 15 minutes' walk from the city's main Sint-Pieters station. There are four trains an hour to Ghent from Brussels on weekdays, taking less than half an hour from Bruxelles Midi, where the Eurostar from London arrives.

Elsewhere in the Museum, and in Ghent

The fine-arts museum has an extensive collection, spanning the centuries from Hieronymus Bosch to Théo van Rysselberghe. And you can also see the workshop where restoration is continuing on some of the panels of the fabulous Mystic Lamb altarpiece -- one of the world's great works of art -- by Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert from Ghent's St Bavo's Cathedral.

To view the whole altarpiece with the already restored panels in situ and the replicas of the ones being worked on, head north to the cathedral in the city centre. It's open from 0830 to 1730 Monday to Saturday, 1300 to 1730 on Sunday. An augmented-reality tour costs 16 euros; if you just want to see the altarpiece without the frills it's 12.50 euros. You can book tickets here; we turned up on a spring Saturday afternoon without tickets and waited just five minutes to get in, though the AR option was, we noted, fully booked.

Images

Michaelina Wautier (c. 1614-1689), Two Girls as Saints Agnes and Dorothea, c. 1650, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) -- Flemish Community Collection

Johanna Vergouwen (1630-1714), Portrait of Two Children, Possibly the Twins Everhard and Hendrik Kockman (1660-1728, 1660-1683), 1668, Private collection

Judith Leyster (1609-1660), Young Woman being Harassed by a Man, 1631, Mauritshuis, The Hague
Clara Peeters (1587-after 1636), Still Life with Cheeses and Crayfish, c. 1612-21, Private collection
Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate (1622-1709), Self-Portrait, c. 1650-55, Private collection
Maria Schalcken (c. 1645/50-?), Young Woman Accepting Grapes from a Boy, c. 1675-82, The Leiden Collection, New York
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), Spectacled Caiman and South African False Coral Snake from Dissertation on the Origin and Metamorphoses of Surinamese Insects, 1719 (1705). National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC

Stubbs, a Thoroughbred Painter of Horses

2026-04-20T17:08:00.000+01:00

No one before had ever painted horses like George Stubbs. Not only did they look incredibly lifelike, he seemed able to capture their individual character -- a talent that ensured he could command extremely high prices for his work from wealthy and influential patrons.

There's now a rare chance to appreciate the only one of the painter's outstanding lifesize equine canvases still in private hands in a small free exhibition, Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse, in Room 1 at the National Gallery in London. This is Scrub, eight times a race winner, who like the gallery's Whistlejacket belonged to one of those rich patrons, the Marquess of Rockingham, and he commissioned both pictures in about 1762.

Scrub, again like Whistlejacket, was depicted not just as a racehorse, under the control of a jockey or stable boy, but in a grand manner, intended to serve as the steed in an equine portrait of George III, who had recently come to the throne. Other specialist painters would be used to add in the king and the surroundings.

There's a monumental wow factor to this incredibly detailed and beautiful painting. An array of meticulous drawings on show here demonstrates the reason for the accuracy of the portrayal: intensive research. In his early 30s, Stubbs spent 18 months dissecting and drawing the bodies of horses at a remote farmhouse in Lincolnshire. He went on to publish The Anatomy of the Horse, which features 18 plates etched by the artist from his drawings and more than 50,000 words of meticulous scientific text.

Its publication in 1766 earned Stubbs instant and lasting appreciation, not least from the animal painters who followed him. It was the most thorough study on the subject for over a hundred years. And incredibly, Stubbs’s horse pictures are still some of the most accurate ever painted, all the while capturing their unique characters. He almost always worked from life (which was not that unusual in the 18th century) but it was his scientific approach that distinguished his work.

Now Scrub is hugely impressive, but he's not quite as impressive as Whistlejacket, perhaps the most famous horse portrait of all, at least in Britain. Whistlejacket hasn't joined his stablemate in this small display in Room 1, but you can't miss him; you can see him from a long way off in pride of place down the central vista of the National Gallery as you approach from what is now the main entrance in the Sainsbury Wing.

Why is Whistlejacket more striking than Scrub? Well, it has to be the lack of distraction from the animal itself. No sky, no clouds, no water, no trees, just a plain background, with a hint of shadow beneath the rear hooves. In this race of champions, Whistlejacket wins by a length. In fact, Rockingham commissioned Whistlejacket first, and he liked the result so much he kept the picture and got Stubbs to start again, with Scrub. But then the nobleman decided not to go ahead with the George III portrait and never actually bought the Scrub painting from Stubbs, who added in the background later.

Stubbs's work continued to be held in such esteem that around 1790 he was approached by an anonymous patron to create a series of paintings of thoroughbred racehorses over the past half-century. The patron assumed the monicker of Mr Turf, making him sound to today's ears rather like a dodgy bookmaker ("You don't need to know my name, Georgie boy, just call me Mr Turf...."). In January 1794, Stubbs opened the Turf Gallery in Conduit Street in Mayfair with 16 pictures, but he pulled out of the project later that year when funding fell through. You can see two of the canvases in this display.

And of course, Stubbs didn't only paint horses, did he? There were dogs, there was a rhino, and even a cheetah in his oeuvre. And in the first of the two Turf Gallery paintings, a sheep, complete with the markings of the breeder -- DOK or Dennis O'Kelly. The champion racehorse Dungannon, who'd befriended the lamb, provides a size comparison.

And also lining up at the National: Mambrino, famed for his success as a stallion as the ancestor of the American Standardbred horse, in rather more inspiring surroundings than Dungannon's paddock.

It's a small Stubbs display at the National Gallery, but it's well worth a trot round.

Practicalities

Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse is on at the National Gallery in London until May 31, and entry to this one-room show is free of charge. The gallery is open daily from 1000 to 1800, and until 2100 on Fridays. We spent about 20 minutes in the display.

The gallery is on the north side of Trafalgar Square, just a couple of minutes from Charing Cross or Leicester Square stations on the rail and Underground networks.

Images

George Stubbs (1724-1806), Scrub, a Bay Horse Belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham, about 1762, Private collection. © Private collection. Photo: The National Gallery, London

George Stubbs, Finished study for The First Anatomical Table of the Muscles, Fascias, Ligaments, Nerves, Arteries, Veins, Glands, and Cartilages of the Horse, 1756-58. © Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Stubbs, Whistlejacket, about 1762. © The National Gallery, London
George Stubbs, Dungannon with a Lamb, 1793, Private collection. © Private collection. Photo: The National Gallery, London
George Stubbs, Mambrino, 1779, Private collection. © Private collection. Photo: The National Gallery, London

Let Me Paint You Some Silence

2026-04-18T10:17:00.000+01:00

"Silence is golden," according to the proverb, but the stillness in the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershøi is distinctly white, charcoal, and every shade of grey in between.

However, there's nothing dull about the Dane's restricted palette, as we were able to appreciate, not for the first time, in Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. His subject matter -- so often sparsely decorated rooms in which the doors, windows and light sources become focal points -- is mesmerising.

This picture -- Sunbeams or Sunlight. Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams. Strandgade 30 -- is so very typical. Apparently empty, lacking any subject matter -- just one wall of a room with a door, panelling and a window. Yet you are captivated by the illumination, and the space. Look how Hammershøi has depicted the light coming in through the window and on the frames round the panes. See how it casts a shadow on the jambs and follow the rays that slope down and their bright pattern on the simple grey floor, while through the window you can discern the tiled roof opposite. And of course, the dust. Yes, as the title says, it's a painting of specks of dust.

Most of the paintings we're highlighting in this post come from the first few years of the 20th century, when Hammershøi and his wife Ida lived on Strandgade in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen, perhaps the painter's golden, yet still grey, period. He's of the same era as many of the Skagen painters who formed an artists' colony at the northern tip of Jutland; Hammershøi lived from 1864 to 1916, and you can see similar themes in the work of Anna Ancher, recently the subject of a show in Dulwich, though she was much, much more colourful.

Hammershøi's works from this period are so calm, so detached, and when figures do appear they are often seen from behind so there's no personal contact with the viewer. Below is Ida, who was regularly his model. The plain black dress, her hands firmly holding a tray and her face in shadow make her seem very distant. There's an air of mystery to this picture, as there so often seems to be with Hammershøi; the cropping of the furniture and the objects in the room; it's all very intriguing.

Ida also features in the next painting: Once more she is seen from behind and preoccupied. Another black dress (with puffed sleeves this time), and she is illuminated again by the light coming from the left. Hammershøi may have been known as the painter of silence, but Ida's pose at the piano and the music on the stand suggest she is playing (and there are a fair few music-linked paintings in this show). The details in this work are so appealing: Just look at the shiny, bulbous dark wooden legs of the piano and the curves of the back of the white chair, one side of which is aligned with one of the deep creases ironed into the tablecloth. A rare pat of colour comes from the butter.

Hammershøi -- like Ancher -- clearly drew inspiration for his work from the masters of the Dutch Golden Age, such as Pieter de Hooch, one of whose own interiors from the Thyssen collection is included in the exhibition to compare and contrast. And, like those Dutch masters, what is apparently a true rendition is not necessarily so; paintings on the walls of the Strandgade apartment are moved around, objects don't always appear in the same place. Just because it looks real doesn't mean it is. And for an updated Dutch genre picture? A woman reading....

We've seen Hammershøi before, of course. He is, without doubt, one of our favourite artists, and it seems we are not alone; our review of a previous exhibition in Paris in 2019 proved a popular post, but this show provides pictures we don't remember seeing before.

And to be honest, we don't actually recall this picture from the Tate. It's the same view as the first painting we featured, but there's a twist. Ida was originally on the left, but the first owner, the pianist Leonard Borwick, a friend of the couple, folded back the canvas to hide her and to create a painting of an empty interior.

Because you can't get enough of Hammershøi's barren space. Here's more to explore below, with a door opening into another room and beyond that another door, while in the distance a window lets in bright light. Then on the right, a door to a further room, perhaps somewhere for entertaining guests, as the panels are more ornate? It's an odd sensation to find yourself looking so intently at a room and realise you are noticing the different door handles too. And then there are the varnished floorboards reflecting the white of the doors as well as showing where the footfall is.

So much silence, but very eloquent.

Finally, here is Hammershøi himself, a self-portrait also in muted grey tones, but with very piercing dark eyes. Behind him and on the right there's one of those typical windows, with a door and a room leading off, giving depth to the empty space and opening out the canvas.

This is from a slightly later period, in 1911, when Hammershøi was renting a house in Sorgenfri, north of Copenhagen. The place name translates as something like free of sorrow, free of care. At first glance, you might think it doesn't quite look that way. But perhaps that muted silence is perfect, after all.

Practicalities

Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens is on at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid until May 31. It's open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1000 to 1900, with lates on Saturdays until 2300. Full-price tickets, which include the Thyssen's extensive permanent collection and other exhibitions, cost 14 euros, though it's free on Saturday nights after 2100. It's highly advisable to book a timeslot for the Hammershøi exhibition; you can order tickets online here. The quietest time to visit is potentially mid-afternoon, when Spaniards go for lunch. We spent about 75 minutes in this show; it was fairly busy and you may need to be patient to get close to individual paintings.

The gallery is on Paseo del Prado, on the same main boulevard as the Prado and Madrid's other main art venues. Banco de España is the nearest Metro station.

Also on in Madrid

Another Scandinavian artist -- a Swede and a close contemporary of Hammershøi -- can be seen at the Mapfre Foundation, just a short walk northwards up the boulevard from the Thyssen. Anders Zorn: Travelling the World, Remembering the Land is on until May 17.

Images

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916), Sunbeams or Sunlight. Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams. Strandgade 30, 1900. Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen. Photo: © Anders Sune Berg
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior, Young Woman Seen from Behind, c. 1904, Randers Kunstmuseum, Randers
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with Woman at the Piano, Strandgade 30, 1901, Private collection

Vilhelm Hammershøi, A Room in the Artist’s Home in Strandgade, Copenhagen, with the Artist’s Wife, 1902, SMK, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior, Sunlight on the Floor, 1906, Tate, London

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Open Doors, 1905, The David Collection, Copenhagen

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Self-Portrait. The Spurveskjul Cottage at Sorgenfri, North of Copenhagen, 1911, SMK, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

New Exhibitions in April

2026-03-31T10:56:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed that it's the 250th anniversary of John Constable's birth this year, while JMW Turner was born 250 years ago last year and Thomas Gainsborough's 300th birthday falls in 2027. Put them all together and you get Gainsborough, Turner and Constable: Inventing Landscape at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, Suffolk. This show, running from April 25 to October 11, explores the emergence of English landscape painting through three of its greatest exponents, and it features mostly rarely seen works from private collections -- including Turner's Abergavenny Bridge, which hasn't been on public display since 1799!

Meanwhile, the show that's just been on at Gainsborough's House -- Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk -- transfers to the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, Berkshire, starting on April 4. On till November 1, the exhibition explores the pivotal role the time Spencer spent in Suffolk had on his career. You can read here what we thought of the show when we saw it in Sudbury.

And continuing the East Anglian theme, let's head to Kettle's Yard in Cambridge for Handpicked: Painting Flowers from 1900 to Today. The exhibition features work by Vanessa Bell, Tirzah Garwood, Henri Rousseau, Edouard Vuillard and Christopher Wood, among many other familiar names. On from April 25 to September 6, and entry is free.

Another country, another anniversary: Jan Steen, painter of unruly households and music-making, was born in 1626, so that means there's an exhibition to celebrate in his home town of Leiden (also, of course, the birthplace of Rembrandt). At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking is on at the Lakenhal from April 2 to August 23, and it will offer a glimpse of everyday life in the 17th century through Steen's mix of humour, chaos and hidden messages.

Now 40 miles east of Leiden in Utrecht, they took another approach to their art; influenced by Caravaggio, they delighted in Baroque drama and chiaroscuro. Gerard van Honthorst was one of the leading lights, and the Centraal Museum is presenting the first ever major retrospective devoted to him from April 25 to September 13. And they've called it Gerard van Honthorst -- Different to Rembrandt.

Two exhibitions to tell you about at the Louvre in Paris; the first, on from April 8 to July 20, is Martin Schongauer: The Beautiful Immortal. Schongauer, from Alsace, was one of the greatest painters and engravers in the Germanic world at the end of the Middle Ages, and this show will present a near-complete selection of his paintings, which reveal the influence of early Netherlandish art. Then, from April 15 to July 20, there's Michelangelo and Rodin: Living Bodies, comparing and contrasting the work of two sculptors centuries apart who broke new ground investing their works with an inner life.

Elsewhere in the French capital, the Petit Palais is very good at bringing you exhibitions of very unfamiliar artists. From April 14 to September 6, they're highlighting Károly Ferenczy (1862-1917), a Hungarian who straddled genres and styles, in a show with nearly 140 works.

Perhaps better known than Ferenczy is Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899), the Italian artist famed for his pastoral landscapes of the Alps, combining a Divisionist technique with Symbolist images. Giovanni Segantini: I Want to See My Mountains is on at the Musée Marmottan Monet from April 29 to August 16 and will feature about 60 works.

Heading south, a chance to delve into the world of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the Caumont art centre in Aix-en-Provence. Toulouse-Lautrec: Creator of Icons brings together nearly 100 works -- painting and poster designs -- and is on from April 24 to October 4. For a taster, you can read about the big Toulouse-Lautrec retrospective we saw in Paris back in 2019.

From Toulouse the artist to Toulouse the city, where at the Fondation Bemberg you can enjoy Joaquín Sorolla: Master of Light. On from April 30 to September 13, this show includes a large number of luminous Sorolla works from the museum devoted to the artist in Madrid, which is currently getting a makeover. Read here about the big Sorolla exhibition at the National Gallery in London a few years ago.

You get searing heat and glaring sun from Sorolla, but up north in Rouen, you're stuck In the Rain: Painting, Living and Dreaming. This exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts has some 150 works, with Gustave Caillebotte and Gustave Courbet among the big names. April 11 to September 20.

Perhaps you remember that Peggy Guggenheim, art collector extraordinaire, was living on the outskirts of Petersfield in Hampshire when she opened her first gallery in London in the late 1930s. The story of Guggenheim Jeune, which lasted only 18 months because of the outbreak of World War II but became a beacon for avant-garde art, is told in Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector at the Guggenheim Collection in Venice from April 25 to October 19. The show travels on to the Royal Academy in London in November and can also be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in New York next year.

Now there's nothing quite like an exhibition about an intriguing artist you've never heard of, and there's one coming up at the Landesmuseum in Hanover. It's about Philipp Klein, a self-taught painter from Mannheim in south-west Germany, who died in his mid-30s in 1907. Many of the 100 works in a show whose title is possibly best translated as Re-Emerged: Philipp Klein in the Circle of the Impressionists (link is in German) are from private collections and being shown in public for the first time. April 24 to October 25.

Last chance to see....

It's full circle back to Turner & Constable: Rivals & Originals, the huge anniversary exhibition at Tate Britain, which ends on April 12. It's now sold out, but you can still get in for one last look if you're a Tate member.

Images

John Constable (1776-1837), Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, c. 1830s, Private collection
Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656), Cavalier and a Woman Singing by Candlelight, 1624, Private collection, New York. © Photo: Christie's Images/Bridgeman Images
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Jane Avril, 1899, Private collection. © Peter Schälchli
Philipp Klein (1871-1907), Lovis Corinth Bathing, 1899. © H. W. Fichter Kunsthandel, Frankfurt am Main

A Swede at Home and Abroad

2026-03-13T14:42:00.000+00:00

It might seem a bit odd travelling to Madrid to see an exhibition by a Scandinavian artist.... but the Swede Anders Zorn made the journey to Spain nine times in his career. He wasn't a painter we'd been familiar with, the Swedes lagging some way behind their Nordic neighbours in our art explorations; we'd been intrigued by the idea of seeing a retrospective of his work in Hamburg late last year but didn't make it, so we seized the chance to view the same show at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid under the title Anders Zorn: Travelling the World, Remembering the Land.

Zorn, who lived from 1860 to 1920, was a big name in his day, and it's easy to appreciate why from this exhibition. He had fantastic technique and worked in a broad range of genres, famed particularly for his portraiture. But he's quite difficult to pigeonhole, and as for some of his early subject matter, it really is rather sickly sweet.

As the exhibition title spells out, Zorn explored the world but he never forgot his roots in the Swedish countryside, and it's one of his pictures of rural Sweden that's among the most striking in the show. The title is Midnight, and given how bright it is, it must be midsummer. A young woman steers her boat carefully towards the shore, whose abundant greenery is reflected in the calm water.

Is she about to meet someone? Or have they already met? We were inevitably reminded of another rower in a stripy shirt, the one depicted by Gustave Caillebotte in Partie de bateau just a decade or so earlier. In the game of fantasy art encounters, you'd somehow like to imagine the two meeting for a romantic assignation on the riverbank.

You don't have to wait long in this show to meet Zorn himself. Here he is, in his studio, which he had installed in a 13th-century log cabin in Mora in his native Dalarna region, where he settled in 1896. It's now part of the Zorn Museum, which has supplied many of the works in the exhibition.

A larger-than-life personality, you feel. Great suit, too.

Zorn first drew attention with a delicate watercolour called In Mourning in 1880, the year he turned 20. It highlighted his precocious technical abilities -- just look at the veil and the gauzy black trimming to the dress coupled with the very sensitive depiction of the face. And it gave him a stellar start to his professional career.

Zorn rapidly garnered commissions and was able to travel widely. Now many aspiring artists would want to break with convention, create work to shock and outrage, tear down the old certainties. Not Zorn; he was no angry young man. He went to Spain and painted the very, very gooey A Mother's Joy. He went to England and painted the son of the Danish ambassador, Christian de Falbe, in a riot of fabric and with a panting St Bernard in the background. It's brilliantly executed but horribly tasteless (and the ambassador didn't buy it as he thought Zorn was asking too much). And luckily for you, we can't find a link to share The Nymph of Love.

However, quite a lot of his early output does stand the test of time; many small paintings are full of eye-catching angles, textures and anecdote; a cat wanders along the top of a wall behind a courting couple In the Gardens of the Alhambra, for example, and there are captivating snapshots of locations as diverse as Algiers and Clovelly. And here's another rower, a Turkish Oarsman, from Constantinople, where Anders and his wife Emma went on their honeymoon in 1885.

We loved the foot, apparently braced against the bottom of the picture frame.

Back in Sweden the following year, Zorn was painting during the couple's Summer Holiday at Dalarö, to the south of Stockholm. David Hockney said he found it a challenge to depict water; Zorn clearly didn't. "What seemed to particularly attract me was the play of light and reflections," he said.

There's a photographic quality to this painting, isn't there? And perhaps it's also somewhat reminiscent of a classic work by another Scandinavian painter, the Dane Christen Købke's View of Lake Sortedam from half a century earlier.

Water plays a major supporting role in Zorn's nudes, too. Unlike his close contemporaries Suzanne Valadon and Félix Vallotton, Zorn didn't set out for his nudes to shock. He sought to create depictions that appeared spontaneous, maintaining, we're told on the wall captions, that the desired image only emerged when the models stopped posing and acted naturally. Indeed, his nudes seem so comfortable to be undressed and at one with nature, their skin the same tone as the sandy banks.

We found these outdoor nudes really quite charming. Of course, the wall captions point out that these pictures "also reveal an interpretation of the female body constructed from a male perspective," which is rather stating the bleeding obvious. You can find a bit of discussion on the web about Zorn and the male gaze, but those in search of titillation at the turn of the century would surely have found a lot more satisfaction elsewhere.

We mentioned portraiture at the beginning, and it was in this genre that Zorn really made his mark. He painted the Swedish King Oscar II, as well as three American presidents, including Grover Cleveland. You can see why he was in demand; some of his women sitters in glamorous gowns approach the bravura of John Singer Sargent. Here's Elizabeth Sherman Cameron, who sat for Zorn in Paris in 1900, just before she was about to head back to Pittsburgh. It's almost like she's been caught by a photographer's flashgun, lit up as if by a lightning strike echoing that branch of a tree on the wallpaper behind her.

The exhibition ends back in Sweden, with Zorn returning to his roots; the concluding image is Midsummer Dance, a painting now in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm that's often seen as an expression of Swedish national identity. It shows couples in traditional dress dancing under the midnight sun in a village near Mora around a maypole that Zorn himself commissioned. Anders Zorn, home and abroad; it's quite a show.

Practicalities

Anders Zorn: Travelling the World, Remembering the Land is on at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid until May 17. It's open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1100 to 2000, Sundays and public holidays from 1100 to 1900 and Mondays from 1400 to 2000. It's perhaps best to go mid-afternoon when it's likely to be quieter: We turned up in the late morning and there was a lengthy queue in front of the single ticket booth; when we came out after about 90 minutes there was no queue whatsoever. Full-price tickets are a bargain at only 5 euros; it's probably worth booking online with a timeslot (see above for link) if you can. Be warned that the wall captions -- black on brown or white on grey in a fairly small font -- are not particularly easy to read.

The venue is situated on Paseo Recoletos, part of the north-south boulevard that's home to all Madrid's great art galleries. Recoletos station on the Cercanías suburban rail network and Colón and Banco de España stations on the Metro are just a few minutes walk away.

Images

Anders Zorn (1860-1920), Midnight, 1891, Zornmuseet, Mora, Sweden. Photo: © Zornmuseet, Mora
Anders Zorn, Self-Portrait in Red, 1915, Zornmuseet, Mora. © Zornmuseet, Mora
Anders Zorn, In Mourning, 1880, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Photo: Cecilia Heisser/Nationalmuseum

Anders Zorn, Turkish Oarsman, 1886, Zornmuseet, Mora. Photo: © Zornmuseet, Mora
Anders Zorn, Summer Holiday, 1886, Private collection. Photo: Hans Thorwid

Anders Zorn, Bathers, 1889, Private collection
Anders Zorn, Elizabeth Sherman Cameron, 1900, Private collection

New Exhibitions in March

2026-02-28T08:01:00.000+00:00

She was a highly successful artist in 17th-century Brussels, creating the sort of paintings you might have seen from Rubens or Van Dyck, but then she vanished from art history. It's only very recently she's been rescued from obscurity, her pictures rightfully reattributed. Michaelina Wautier comes to the Royal Academy in London on March 27 from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, offering the first opportunity to encounter her work on a large scale. On till June 21.

And while we're on the theme of new discoveries, we've made quite a few at the Dulwich Picture Gallery down the years. The latest arrival there is a completely unknown name to us, from the Baltic: Konrad Mägi (1878-1925), described as a pioneer of Estonian modernism. More than 60 of his works are being shown in the UK for the first time in an exhibition that runs from March 24 to July 12.

No introduction is needed for David Hockney, and he's taking over the Serpentine Gallery on March 12 with his 90-metre-long frieze A Year in Normandie, inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry (which will of course be at the British Museum later in the year). Entry to David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, which can be seen until August 23, is free, but it's best to book a timeslot online. Also on at the Serpentine, and also free, is Cecily Brown: Picture Making, starting on March 27 and running until September 6.

Whistlejacket, the stallion painted life-size by George Stubbs in about 1762, has a new stable companion at the National Gallery. In Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse, a free one-room exhibition, you can meet Scrub, also a retired racehorse, whom Stubbs painted at around the same time and on the same monumental scale. It's on from March 12 to May 31. For a taster, you can read about the great Stubbs show we saw in Milton Keynes a few years ago.

And another free exhibition in London this month: Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture at Sir John Soane's Museum from March 4 to June 28. This marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Sir John Vanbrugh, star of the English Baroque and designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, among others. Oh, and playwright and alleged spy. Not so much Renaissance man as Restoration man.

Manchester rarely features as a destination on our previews, but this month we're heading to the Whitworth for a show of ukiyo-e prints from the two greatest exponents of the genre, artists who exerted a huge influence on the development of western painting from the late 19th century after the opening-up of Japan; Hokusai's The Great Wave is one of the most recognisable of all artworks. Beneath the Great Wave: Hokusai and Hiroshige runs from March 14 to November 15, and entry is free.

Flower-related exhibitions seem to have been a growing trend in recent years; now it's time for In Bloom: How Plants Changed Our World at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. With more than 100 artworks and objects, the show aims to tell the stories of how many exotic plants came to Britain through trade and exploration. March 19 to August 16.

We've recently seen John Constable at Tate Britain in a blockbuster show with JMW Turner celebrating the 250th anniversary of their births. Suffolk, Constable's home county, has got events running all through the year, and Constable: A Cast of Characters opens at Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich on March 28. It looks at those who influenced and supported the artist, including fellow Suffolk painter Thomas Gainsborough, and explores the era Constable lived in. Until June 14.

We started off with Michaelina Wautier, and she's also one of more than 40 women who feature in Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam 1600-1750 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent from March 7 to May 31. Like Wautier, they have in many cases been left on the sidelines of art history down the centuries; this show in Flanders aims to put the record straight. Judith Leyster, Maria Sybilla Merian, Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch are big names; we're looking forward to meeting the three dozen others.

It's the centenary of Claude Monet's death in 2026. One of the big exhibitions is Monet on the Normandy Coast: The Discovery of Etretat at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt from March 19 to July 5, which features 24 works by Monet, as well as dozens more by artists including Delacroix, Courbet and Matisse, celebrating the delights of the fabulous cliff formations around Etretat, once a quiet fishing village. It's a terrific show; we saw it in Lyon late last year.

Just before World War I, The Blue Rider group in Germany around Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky created pioneering Expressionist art. A show of 150 works at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, opening on March 10 -- Beyond the World: The Blue Rider -- includes new acquisitions by the gallery and has a special focus on women in the group, notably Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin. No rush for this one: it's on till September 5, 2027, in the run-up to the museum's centenary in 2029.

Staying in Munich for something a little different: Hair: Stories of Power and Passion at the Kunsthalle from March 20 to October 4. Hair is a potent form of expression, the Kunsthalle says, to signal status and belonging, to captivate or intimidate. A journey through three millennia of art and culture with around 200 objects and artworks. A version of the show will open at the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg in south-west Germany in November.

And another slightly out-of-the-ordinary listing: the first retrospective in more than three decades of Carl Grossberg, a member of the German New Objectivity movement who almost exclusively painted architectural and industrial motifs. Carl Grossberg: Objective -- Magical -- Visionary is on at the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal from March 22 to August 30, and then from late September at the Museum im Kulturspeicher in Würzburg. Now Wuppertal's got the monorail, but then Würzburg has the Tiepolo ceiling. And the wine.

Back to the mainstream for Renoir and Love: A Joyful Modernity (1865-1885) at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Mainstream now, but as the museum points out, his paintings "are so well-known that it has become difficult to perceive how radical they are." Astonishingly, the last Renoir retrospective in Paris was in 1985, and this exhibition aims to put the focus on his break with conventions in depicting relationships between men and women. On from March 17 to July 19, and then moving to the National Gallery in London in October and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in February 2027.

Just across the River Seine, at the Musée de l'Orangerie, there's Henri Rousseau: The Ambition of Painting from March 25 to July 20. This show of the work of perhaps the most famous of all Primitive-style painters comes to Paris from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, where it garnered very good reviews.

And another Monet show, this time at the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny, just down the road from the painter's garden with its water-lily pond. Monet in Giverny: Before the Water Lilies, 1883-1890 looks at the years after Monet first moved to the village and will have around 30 works showing how he explored the attractions of his new surroundings. It's on from March 27 to July 5.

Anthony van Dyck was a star artist in Flanders, in Italy and in England. Van Dyck, the European is the very appropriate title of the new exhibition at the Doge's Palace in Genoa, where he was based during his time in Italy, from March 20 to July 19. It's the largest van Dyck show in 25 years, with more than 50 paintings on loan from 32 museums across the continent.

One of this month's most intriguing new openings is at the Kunstmuseum in Basel: The First Homosexuals: The Birth of New Identities 1869-1939. With around 80 works, it shows how new ideas on gender, identity and sexuality were depicted starting in 1869, the year the word homosexual first appeared in print. This exhibition was originally shown at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, and it can be seen in Switzerland from March 7 to August 2.

One final show to tell you about this month: Canaletto & Bellotto at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Bringing together views of London, Venice and Vienna by Canaletto and his nephew Bernardo Bellotto (who sometimes traded on his uncle's name), the show aims to offer insights into the interaction between 18th-century art and society. March 24 to September 6.

Last chance to see....

If you're in Lyon right now and you haven't been to the magnificent Etretat exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, cancel all your other plans and go, because it closes on March 1 before moving to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (see above).

Winter still getting you down? Get along to the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south-west London by March 8 to soak up the light-filled interiors of the Danish painter Anna Ancher.

Or you could head to Suffolk for some very English scenes by Stanley Spencer, as well as insights into his sometimes very singular relationships, in Love & Landscape at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury until March 22.

Images

Michaelina Wautier (1604-1689), Self-Portrait, c. 1650, Private collection
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Scrub, a Bay Horse Belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham, about 1762, Private collection. © Private collection. Photo: The National Gallery, London
Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema (1836–1912), Orchids, 1879, Private collection, USA, courtesy of the Richard Green Gallery, London
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Rough Sea at Etretat, 1883, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Photo © MBA Lyon; Photo Martial Couderette
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC. Photo Courtesy of The Phillips Collection
Gabriel Morcillo (1887-1973), Fructidor, c. 1932, Dr Adolfo Planet, Valencia

Anna Ancher (1859-1935), Interior, Brøndum’s Annex, c. 1916. Image courtesy of Skagens Museum

Monet Monet Monet

2026-02-17T20:58:00.002+00:00

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Claude Monet, the Impressionist par excellence, and unsurprisingly there's no shortage of Monet-related exhibitions, particularly in France, to mark the occasion. So if you want to fill 2026 with luminous, atmospheric landscapes and dreamy water lilies, we have some dates for your diary.

We'll take the big shows in chronological order, which means crossing the border into Germany for the first of them. We can vouch for it that Monet on the Normandy Coast: The Discovery of Etretat at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt is an excellent exhibition; we saw it in Lyon late last year. Monet was fascinated by the chalk cliffs around the fishing village of Etretat with their eroded formations -- creating bizarre doors and needles -- and he produced a series of pictures showing the light and weather effects on the land and sea. There are 24 works by him on display; Monet's the star, but you'll also find dozens more by Courbet, Delacroix, Matisse and many others, all inexorably drawn to Etretat. The show is on from March 19 to July 5.

Let's head to Normandy itself, and Giverny, where Monet settled in 1883. The garden he created, with its water-lily pond, is a place of tourist pilgrimage, overrun by crowds, but we prefer the calmness of the Musée des impressionnismes just down the road. They're concentrating there on Monet's early years in the village, before he bought the piece of land across what was then a railway line to make his pond. Monet in Giverny: Before the Water Lilies, 1883-1890 will have around 30 works showing how Monet explored the attractions of his new surroundings. It's on from March 27 to July 5. Monet's house and garden, by the way, reopens on April 1 and you can already book admission tickets online.

Monet grew up in Le Havre, where the River Seine enters the sea, and MuMa, the city's art museum splendidly located at the harbour mouth, is putting on a show looking at the artist's early career. Monet in Le Havre will take visitors back to 1845, when the young Claude, aged about 5, arrived in the port with his family, and through to 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition, when he completed a final series of views of the port. With around 80 works, this exhibition will run from June 5 to September 27.

Monet's most famous water lilies are of course in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, and that's the venue for Monet: Painting Time, which is on from September 30 to January 25. This selection of almost 40 pictures has been chosen to reveal how Monet's series paintings, showing motifs such as haystacks, poplars or indeed Rouen Cathedral in various lights and at different hours of the day, can be viewed as an attempt to dissect time.

The show will be accompanied by a virtual-reality experience entitled Monet in Real Time, taking the visitor on a 20-minute journey from Argenteuil along the Seine to Giverny through his paintings, capturing the seasonal and daily changes in light effects and telling the history of his house and garden, his struggle with blindness and his evolution towards an almost abstract style of painting.

Now, there's one more big exhibition on our schedule, and it looks a good one. According to the official French tourist website Voyages impressionnistes, the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, which holds the largest collection of Monet's works, is planning a show of landscapes from Monet to David Hockney, looking at Monet's influence on painters through the 20th century and into the 21st. It's due to run from September 24 to January 31, though there's nothing on the Marmottan's website as we write.

And if you're in northern England and can't get to any of the aforementioned locations, you may be lucky enough to have a Monet painting coming to a gallery near you. The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil, which he painted in 1872, has been chosen from the National Gallery collection in London for this year's Masterpiece Tour. The scheme is aimed at ensuring people around the UK can "engage with the national collection," and the painting is at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery until March 25; it then goes on show at the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool from March 28 to June 13 and the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull from June 19 to September 13.

This year's edition of the Normandie Impressionniste art festival will celebrate Monet's garden in Giverny, with contemporary artists, Ai Weiwei probably the most prominent among them, creating an itinerary of works along the course of the Seine and elsewhere in Normandy from June to September in tribute. There are no details as yet, but check the festival website nearer the time, and keep an eye on Voyages impressionnistes, which should list all relevant events as well.

Images

Claude Monet (1840-1926), The Cliff and the Porte d'Aval, 1885, Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam. Photo © Hasso Plattner Collection
Claude Monet, Les Nymphéas: Reflets verts (detail), between 1914 and 1926, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. © GrandPalaisRmn (musée de l’Orangerie)/Hervé Lewandowski
Claude Monet, The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil, 1872, National Gallery, London. © The National Gallery

New Exhibitions in February

2026-01-31T09:09:00.000+00:00

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 highlights that include gold funerary masks recovered from royal tombs. This immersive show has been to several other major cities around the globe, and it's now coming to Battersea Power Station. Tickets are on sale for dates from February 28 through to the end of May, though some days and times already have low availability.

Samurai at the British Museum explores how a Japanese warrior class developed into the country's intellectual and political elite, with the concept morphing in modern times into an idealised vision of medieval Japan. Armour, artworks and luxury objects are among the exhibits to be seen from February 3 to May 4.

One of the best exhibition spaces in England outside London is the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. Their new show, starting on February 14, is devoted to Euan Uglow (1932-2000), known for his meticulous technique, which sometimes meant taking years to complete a picture. Euan Uglow: An Arc from the Eye runs until May 31; it's billed as the first solo exhibition of his work in a British public gallery for 20 years and will feature more than 40 of his most ambitious paintings.

It's 150 years since the birth of Gwen John, the greatest woman artist Wales has produced. Time then for a major exhibition of her work, the first in more than four decades, at the National Museum in Cardiff. Gwen John: Strange Beauties runs from February 7 to June 28, after which it transfers to the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh before heading in 2027 to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and then the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. We saw a smaller Gwen Joh n show at Pallant House in Chichester in 2023.

The Dane Vilhelm Hammershøi is one of our favourite artists: There's something about those enigmatic interiors. So we're very much looking forward to taking in a comprehensive retrospective at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid that opens on February 17. With around 100 works, Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens will run until May 31. It then goes on to the Kunsthaus in Zurich in July.

Madrid is clearly the place to go this spring for fans of Scandinavian art, because there's a Swede at the Mapfre Foundation, in fact his country's most prominent painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Anders Zorn: Travelling the World, Remembering the Land, on from February 19 to May 17, comes from the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. Zorn was famous for his portraits, but also for paintings that seem to convey a timeless image of Sweden.

Opening at the Belvedere in Vienna on February 27 is an exhibition about the Austrian 19th-century landscape painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. Not perhaps a show we'd take much notice of under normal circumstances, but worth mentioning because after it closes on June 14, a selection of the works will be making their way to London for a free one-room display at the National Gallery.

Perhaps more excitement elsewhere in Vienna, where Gustave Courbet: Realist and Rebel is on at the Leopold Museum from February 19 to June 21. This exhibition aims to provide a broad overview of the work of one of the most influential of 19th-century artists, and as you can see if you follow the link, it includes paintings such as L'Origine du Monde. Can't make it to Austria? Courbet will move to the Folkwang Museum in Essen in July.

Born coincidentally in the same year as Gwen John: the Expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker, who's something of a cult figure, the first woman to paint herself pregnant and nude, and who died not long after giving birth. Her birthday was February 8, and that's the starting date for two exhibitions in Germany. On at the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen (the first ever devoted to a solo woman artist when it opened in 1927) is Becoming Paula (scroll down for the English text), exploring her artistic development. It's on till September 13.

Meanwhile, an exhibition at the Albertinum in Dresden, where Modersohn-Becker was born, brings her together with one of her most famous male contemporaries in Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch: The Big Questions of Life. This show, which the Albertinum says features many of the most important works by both artists, and which is being put on in cooperation with the Munch Museum in Oslo, runs until May 17.

Before the Expressionists, there were the Impressionists, though in Germany their timescales overlapped quite a bit. Avant-Garde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany starts at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam on February 28, running until June 7. It's a big and fascinating show; we saw it at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden in the autumn.

Off to the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris now, for Leonora Carrington. On from February 18 to July 19, this show concentrates on Carrington's early artistic years in France and Italy, looking at themes such as her discovery of classical Italian art and her involvement in Surrealism.

Now for two exhibitions in Amsterdam, beginning at the Van Gogh Museum with Yellow: Beyond Van Gogh's Colour. It was Vincent's favourite hue, and the show starts with some of his Sunflowers, before exploring the use of yellow in art, fashion, music and literature around 1900. There will also be a light installation by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. February 13 to May 17.

Scarcely five minutes walk away at the Rijksmuseum, an exhibition that sounds just the ticket for the thoughtful art historian: Metamorphoses. This work by the Roman poet Ovid with its tales of transformation of gods, humans and animals has been an inspiration to artists for centuries, and the show features interpretations by Titian, Caravaggio, Rodin and Magritte among more than 80 exhibits. From February 6 to May 25, and then on to the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

And finally, one of the star attractions at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch, is the inspiration for an exhibition examining our relationship with Birds. Curated by historian Simon Schama, this show features art by Leonardo, Rembrandt, Picasso and Matisse, among others. It's on from February 12 to June 7.

Last chance to see.....

Georges Seurat also features in Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists at the National Gallery in London, which ends on February 8; filled with light, it was one of the best exhibitions we saw in 2025.

Also ending on February 8 is the run of Impressionism in Germany at the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden before it goes on to Potsdam (see above).

Our favourite exhibition of 2025 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Félix Vallotton. The show at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in his home city of Lausanne, Vallotton Forever: The Retrospective, with about 250 works, closes on February 15.

It's quite a long time since we saw the celebration of 100 years of Surrealism at the Centre Pompidou. The last leg of this touring show is at Philadelphia Art Museum, where it closes on February 16.

And you only have until March 1 to catch the spectacular exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon about how Etretat in Normandy, with its stunning cliff formations, has inspired generations of artists. The show, though, will reopen at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt on March 19.

Images

Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy, 1888, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Suit of armour and helmet, Japan, 1519 (helmet), 1696 (armour) and 1800s (textiles). © The Trustees of the British Museum
Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916), Interior, Young Woman Seen from Behind, c. 1904, Randers Kunstmuseum, Randers. © Photo: Randers Kunstmuseum
Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), The Man with a Pipe, c. 1849. © Musée Fabre, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole; Photo: Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole/Frédéric Jaulmes
Philipp Franck (1860-1944), Wannsee, 1915, Private collection, Frankfurt am Main. © Photo: Kunsthaus Lempertz/Saša Fuis Photographie, Cologne
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Pygmalion and Galatea, c. 1890. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Félix Vallotton (1865-1925), Self-Portrait at the Age of 20, 1885, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne. Photo: MCBA, Lausanne

Fire and Water, Sun and Sky

2026-01-20T13:35:00.000+00:00

"Fire and water.... the one all heat, the other all humidity -- who will deny that they both exhibit, each in its own way, some of the highest qualities of Art?" That was the Literary Gazette's verdict in 1831 on JMW Turner and John Constable, probably the most admired of all British landscape artists. Almost exact contemporaries whose work is being celebrated at Tate Britain in Turner & Constable: Rivals & Originals, a thoroughly engrossing exhibition that bathes you in the drama of Turner's golden sunlight, contrasted with perhaps the more understated charms of Constable's cloud-filled skies.

"The Sun is God" are supposed to have been Turner's last words, and throughout this show you can't get away from his solar worship -- one striking watercolour records The Sun Rising over Water. And that's it, that's all there is, but to be frank, you don't really notice the water. It's the bright yellow Sun that holds your eye, pure and simple. And for our first image, let's have another sunrise, in a very late Turner, from almost the end, when his painting technique was growing ever more abstract.

Turner had first painted Norham Castle, overlooking the River Tweed on the border between England and Scotland, in his 20s. This final depiction, done from memory and presumably old sketches when he was around 70, is unfinished, though you wonder how much more he might have done to it. It's a view bathed in light, the Sun reflected in the river. And it makes you realise how astonishingly avant-garde Turner's art was for the early 19th century.

Among the very first pictures you encounter are early portraits of the two artists -- a very confident Self-Portrait by Turner made when he was about 24 and a depiction of a rather shy-looking John Constable by fellow Royal Academy student Ramsay Richard Reinagle. They seem to express a lot: Turner the Wunderkind, a member of the RA at 27; Constable the slow starter, who found it difficult to sell his work, who wasn't elected to the Academy until he was in his 50s. Early on, you get the sense of Turner as a bit of a show-off, going for the grand effect in a painting of the Lake District, while even amid the lakes and fells, Constable's viewpoint is very understated.

For Turner the Sun was the driving force, but for Constable, "the sky is the source of light in Nature, and governs everything." If Turner painted just the Sun, Constable spent hours studying just the clouds, and sketching them. Clouds waft over his pictures of what we regard as bucolic rural scenes, though life was by no means easy for those East Anglian country folk bringing in the harvest.

Constable painted outdoors -- you can see his fold-up sketching chair in the show, and he managed to bring a remarkable freshness to these depictions. He is somehow the recorder of our memory of the English countryside. If you've ever been for a walk through farmland in the south, you've come to the gate in A Cornfield.

While a lot of the exhibits here are from the Tate itself, a fair number of major paintings by both artists have made their way across the Atlantic from museums in the US. Among them Constable's The White Horse, the first he ever produced on a six-foot canvas, not the sort you could paint out in the open, but put together in the studio from a series of outdoor sketches.

Exhibited in 1819, it led to Constable becoming an associate member of the RA, fully 20 years later than Turner.

A bit over halfway through this show -- and it's a big, big show -- there's a screen showing a clip on a loop from Mr Turner, the 2014 Mike Leigh film in which Timothy Spall played JMW. It recreates the incident at the RA in which Turner dramatically made a showy last-minute addition to a seascape hanging close to Constable's The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, adding a bright red splodge of paint. "He has been here and fired a gun," said Constable, who had found his own painting a bit of a slog. However theatrical, the video nicely encapsulates the rivalry.

Now, the Constables may be gorgeous, but it's really Mr Turner who fills you with wonder. Just look at this steamer in a snowstorm: It's almost as if you're gazing through a plate-glass window on the seafront (at the Turner Contemporary in Margate perhaps), watching agog as the ship tries to battle its way into the safety of the harbour.

The violence, the vibrancy of the brushstrokes is incredible. It's a whirl of paint; this is the picture for which Turner is supposed to have been lashed to a ship's mast so he could observe the storm.

And then this, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons in 1834. It's one of a number of images of Turner's that seem to emphasise the passing of an old order and the advent of a new age, full of symbolism. Did Turner exaggerate the extent of the flames? Maybe. But that only serves to heighten the drama.

Let's have another Turner, perhaps with a similar sentiment from around the same era, with the moon illuminating the work of men transhipping coal from barges to larger ships on the River Tyne at Newcastle.... their work too would soon become an activity of the past with the arrival of the railways.

But for our last picture, let's go back to Constable Country, the border of Suffolk and Essex and Stoke-by-Nayland.

"What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o'clock, after a slight shower during the night," Constable wrote to a friend in 1835. Such a picture would include "plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey.... all good paintable material."

This was Constable's last six-foot sketch; he never worked it up for exhibition, dying in 1837, more than a decade before Turner. It is still bucolic rural England.

Despite the size of this show, not all the painters' greatest hits are on display: Constable's The Hay Wain and Turner's Rain, Steam, and Speed and The Fighting Temeraire have stayed in the National Gallery, but if you want to go and see those, it's just half an hour's walk from Tate Britain and you can pop in for free any day. It's a bit early to be handing out awards for 2026 -- this is literally the first exhibition we've been to this year -- but Turner & Constable is likely to be near the top of the list when we look back in December.

Practicalities

Turner & Constable: Rivals & Originals is on at Tate Britain until April 12 and is open daily from 1000 to 1800. Full-price tickets cost £24, and it's a good idea to book online, which you can do here; it was extremely crowded when we visited on a Tuesday afternoon. We spent a good 2 1/2 hours in this show. The nearest London Underground station to Tate Britain is Pimlico on the Victoria Line, about five minutes walk away.

Images

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Norham Castle, Sunrise, c. 1845, Tate. Image: Tate, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

John Constable (1776-1837), The Wheatfield, exhibited 1816, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
John Constable, The White Horse, 1819. © The Frick Collection, New York. Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr
JMW Turner, Snow Storm -- Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, exhibited 1842, Tate. Image: Tate, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

JMW Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834, exhibited 1835, Cleveland Museum of Art
JMW Turner, Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, exhibited 1835, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
John Constable, Stoke-by-Nayland, c. 1835-37, The Art Institute of Chicago

The Singular Stanley Spencer

2026-01-12T20:28:00.000+00:00

A day at the seaside: stripey deckchairs, a pebbly shore, groynes, choppy sea, swimwear and towels drying on a line and the edge of a brightly coloured beach hut. It's a very English scene. And look, even the sun is out. Surely everybody's having fun?

Sadly, the painter -- a very English artist -- wasn't enjoying himself. Stanley Spencer had come back to Suffolk, a place where he'd previously known happiness, seeking solace after divorce from his first wife and the almost immediate breakdown of his second marriage. On the beach at Southwold, there was an air of "suburban seaside abandonment", he wrote in his notebook. But painting it, he was separated from the jollity by the high sea wall. "I felt a kindred feeling with the bathing suits in the line in front of me in the scene that they seemed to be taking no part, as I was not, with the activities on the beach."

The tale is told and the painting can be seen in Suffolk now, at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, where we've come for Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk. We tend to associate Stanley largely with his home village of Cookham on the Thames in Berkshire, but this exhibition explains the role the East Anglian county played in his life. And it's a show whose storyline goes to emphasise just how odd a character Spencer was: a man with a singular mystic artistic vision but whose relationships with women were complicated, to say the least.

Let's get back to the beginning. Stanley was introduced to Suffolk by his fiancée and fellow artist, Hilda Carline, whom he met shortly after World War I; she'd worked at Wangford, near Southwold, as a Land Girl. They returned to Wangford for extended painting holidays from 1924 to 1926. Among the first images you see in this show are self-portraits by Stanley and Hilda painted in 1923, when they were already in their early 30s.

Here's Stanley looking a bit dreamy, and without those large round spectacles he'd wear in later years. Hilda looks really rather serious. Her paintbox is down by her side, front left, though that hat doesn't look the sort she'd be doing any work in.

It was a turbulent relationship even before they were married. Stanley broke off the engagement, not for the first time, when he came across Hilda being fitted for her wedding dress, an episode he later recalled in the book illustration below.

The vision was so disturbing that he insisted Hilda wear ordinary clothes for the ceremony, which finally took place in Wangford parish church in February 1925, with her in a rather sombre brown-and-black striped suit, which you can see on display.

There had initially been an attraction between Hilda and Stanley's brother Gilbert, and indeed Gilbert joined them on their honeymoon -- in Wangford. Gilbert painted The Windmill in the village, while the following year Stanley immortalised The Red House, a curtain flapping from one of the upstairs windows.

In both years, Stanley and Hilda stayed at The Hill, a house belonging to the Lambert family, and it was there he returned, alone, at his low ebb in 1937. A painting entitled Gardening from around 1945 shows Mr Lambert and his daughter digging up leeks, the textures and colours of their clothes and her trug blending in with the hues of the muddy vegetable plot.

Stanley and Hilda's marriage was already under strain when he became infatuated in the early 1930s with Patricia Preece, whom he married in 1937 just days after getting a divorce from Hilda. But as we saw at Charles ton in Lewes a couple of years ago, Stanley never went on honeymoon with Patricia; instead she went to Cornwall with her lover Dorothy Hepworth, whose paintings were signed and marketed as being Preece's.

And with that in mind, the feeling we got in Sudbury was that the more you come across Spencer, the more singular he seems. Look at the biography on the website of the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham and you'll find him described as "a most sociable character who has often been called eccentric and Patricia in her diaries even called him 'mad'. As a character he was certainly different and unusual. The small man with twinkling eyes and shaggy grey hair (often wearing his pyjamas under his suit if it was cold) became a familiar sight wandering the lanes of Cookham pushing the old pram in which he carried his canvas and easel.''

Spencer's most characteristic works are those showing Biblical scenes taking place as if in the Cookham of his imagination, with people of the village somehow taking the roles of those in the Holy Land. The Resurrection, Cookham in the Tate collection happens in Spencer's personal vision in Cookham churchyard, with Hilda and himself among the participants. There's an early study for it in this show.

And there are also a number of pictures intended for an ambitious though completely impracticable project of Spencer's -- the Church-House, or Church of Me, intended to be a vast edifice covering Cookham and filled with paintings of Stanley's life and loves, indeed expressing his reverence for all sorts of love. They include domestic scenes such as one showing him (very small) and Hilda (much larger) choosing clothes At the Chest of Drawers, and a series depicting the Marriage at Cana, of course transposed to Cookham, with Girls Returning from a Bathe before they dress up for the celebrations.

It's notable how oddly distorted the figures are in much of this work, grotesque almost. That's in sharp contrast to the precision of Spencer's landscapes. Left on his own and short of money, Stanley was encouraged by his dealer to paint landscapes, which were in greater demand than figure paintings.

But here's a strange view of Cookham, with part of a tennis court taking up the foreground. We appear to be high up, at treetop level, and way above a rooftop on the right. Beyond, the countryside extends out across a flat plain with some trees and water before rising up to the distant hills. To add to the oddness are two branches with leaves right at the front of the picture protruding on to the lines of the court.

Spencer didn't actually like painting landscapes very much. He said that he felt "so lonely when I draw from nature".

And let's end in Cookham, with a view of the Thames, a very English river: the crenellated church tower on the left, the country house, the walled garden, distant fields, the towpath and the boats on the water. But look too at all those delightful patterns: the horizontal boards of the boathouse and the lines of what appears to be its corrugated-iron roof, the ripples of the river and the regular stripes in the punts.

We very much enjoyed this show; it's well worth a visit.

Practicalities

Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk is on at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury until March 22. The museum is open daily from 1000 to 1630. Standard ticket prices are £16.50 including Gift Aid, £15 without. We spent just under an hour in this show, but you'll also want to explore the rest of the museum. There are a couple of other temporary exhibitions, featuring Humphrey Ocean and, rather more enticingly for us, the lush landscapes of Hannah Brown. There's also a collection of works by Thomas Gainsborough, a museum devoted to him, and a room of pictures by Cedric Morris. It's a considerably larger gallery than we were expecting....

Gainsborough's House is about 10 minutes walk from Sudbury train station; there's an hourly service from London Liverpool Street changing at Marks Tey and taking about 1 hour 20 minutes on weekdays, a little longer on Sundays.

The Spencer in Suffolk exhibition will also be shown at the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham from April 4 to November 1.

Images

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), Southwold, 1937, Aberdeen Art Gallery. © Estate of Stanley Spencer; Image provided by Aberdeen City Council (Archives, Gallery & Museums Collection)
Stanley Spencer, Self-Portrait, 1923, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. © Estate of Stanley Spencer
Hilda Carline (1889-1950), Self-Portrait, 1923, Tate. © Estate of Stanley Spencer. Photo: © Tate © Estate of Stanley Spencer
Stanley Spencer, Month of March: Dressmaking, 1926, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. © Estate of Stanley Spencer
Stanley Spencer, Study for the Resurrection, c. 1920-21, Private collection. © Estate of Stanley Spencer
Stanley Spencer, View from the Tennis Court, Cookham, 1938, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. © Estate of Stanley Spencer
Stanley Spencer, View from Cookham Bridge, 1936, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. © Estate of Stanley Spencer.

The Mesmerising Power of Bridget Riley

2026-01-04T18:26:00.001+00:00

There's no denying it: Bridget Riley's art has a physical effect on you. So much so that gallery attendants at Turner Contemporary in Margate for Bridget Riley: Learning to See have been advised to avert their eyes from the paintings regularly.

Stand in front of those curves and waves, or the precise narrow brightly coloured vertical stripes that fill some works, and you may feel you are swaying. You become slightly dizzy or a little queasy, even perhaps a bit seasick; well, it can get pretty choppy out there on the North Sea, just beyond the gallery walls. Nothing too alarming or extreme, though; it's just a perception.

When we went to see this Bridget Riley show we knew what to expect, having been in July 2019 to the blockbuster exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh that brought together half a century of pictures in a dazzling extravaganza of Op Art abstraction. It moved to the Hayward Gallery in London later that year.

This free exhibition was much smaller, but no less stimulating. It certainly had the three of us who went together interacting with the art and with each other, discussing how Riley's neat and mathematically precise patterns affected our senses as well as our equilibrium. And we found ourselves examining the works from different angles, seeing how they appeared to change as we moved around.

Take a look at Current: Dark Colours 12. The 156 x 267 cm piece of linen is covered in row upon row of identical-sized triangles painted in oil in three colours. However, they're not all the same shape. The horizontal lines are all straight, but some of the triangles have convex and concave sides; other shapes form in front of your eyes, in particular larger triangles. In some instances they create a rippling effect. Stare long enough and your eyes can create a circle out of six triangles together.

The effect grows more disconcerting the longer you look.

Time for something calmer, perhaps. Pharoah, like Dark Colours, is a very recent work. Bridget Riley's pursuit of form and rhythm continues into her 90s. Are these multi-coloured stripes the same width, or is it an optical illusion? That's the question you ask yourself as you stand in front of the artwork.

As the Turner Contemporary is right by the sea, perhaps nothing could be more apt than waves. Some are large and vertical, as in Cataract 1, a painting that dates back to 1967.

There are similar-coloured waves, but thin and horizontal, in Streak 3, from the start of the 1980s, with an uncanny resemblance to certain brands of toothpaste.

Both works have the property of appearing three-dimensional as you walk in front of them. The striped lines seem to flow and make the canvases look as if they aren't flat but padded or indeed bolstered to create a regular pattern of dips and bumps. Look closely and you realise how the troughs and crests of the waves are formed by changing the widths of the lines. The preliminary studies on show reveal how Riley used graph paper to work everything out on a small scale first.

And, just when you've been almost overwhelmed by the waves, everything opens out onto a huge white wall with a pattern of dinner plate-sized spots in a light-filled room.

You've possibly seen something similar at the National Gallery in London, where discs created by Riley have adorned the walls of the staircase in the Annenberg Court since 2019. The National notes that the title of that work, Messengers, was inspired by a phrase Constable used when referring to clouds drifting in the sky. It might also be an allusion to the numerous angels, bearers of news, that we see in the skies of so many National Gallery pictures.

The circles in Margate -- a work called Dancing to the Music of Time -- won't enjoy such longevity. They're a copy, created by Riley's assistants, of an original in the National Gallery in Australia, and when this show ends, the wall will be repainted white in preparation for the next exhibition. Luckily, you've got plenty of time to get down to Margate before that happens.

Practicalities

Bridget Riley: Learning to See is on at Turner Contemporary in Margate until May 4. It's open on Wednesdays to Sundays, as well as bank holidays, from 1100 to 1700. Entry is free. We spent an hour going round, including a few minutes enjoying JMW Turner's Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate, which is on loan from the Tate (and shows just how choppy it can get outside). The gallery is just 10 to 15 minutes walk along the front from Margate station; there are direct trains to Margate from London Victoria and St Pancras, taking between 1 1/2 and 1 3/4 hours.

If you're quick....

There's also a chance to see a Bridget Riley show at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris; it runs until January 25.

Images

Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Current: Dark Colours 12, 2025, Private collection. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, London. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist
Bridget Riley, Pharoah, 2024, Private collection. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, London. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist

Bridget Riley, Streak 3, 1980, Private collection. Photo: John Webb. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist
Installation view from Bridget Riley: Learning to See, 2025. Courtesy Turner Contemporary. Photo: Above Ground Studio (Seraphina Neville). © Turner Contemporary. Photo shows Dancing to the Music of Time, 2022, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

New Exhibitions in January

2025-12-31T16:02:00.000+00:00

Hawaii: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans at the British Museum in London examines the art and history of the islands in the Pacific, in an exhibition marking 200 years since their king and queen travelled to London to seek an alliance with Britain. Many of the 150 objects and artworks have never been seen in the UK before. On from January 15 to May 25.

At the Courtauld Gallery, 10 little-known names will be showcased in A View of One's Own: Landscapes by British Women Artists, 1760-1860. Fanny Blake, Harriet Lister and Amelia Long are some of those whose drawings and watercolours will be on display; some were recognised in their lifetimes, the work of others has only recently come to light. January 28 to May 20.

Her work was instantly recognisable and hugely popular. Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy at The Box in Plymouth marks the centenary of the birth of a painter who celebrated everyday life but whose pictures were often regarded as mere kitsch by the art establishment. This show, running from January 24 to May 31, gathers more than 80 of the estimated 500 paintings she made, and alongside the attempt to show her credentials as a serious artist, it's bound to be a lot of fun.

From January 31 to May 10, People Watching at the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester will be showing around 50 portraits from the Ingram Collection of Modern British Art. Elisabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth, Dod Procter and Bridget Riley are among the sculptors and painters represented.

The big exhibition opening on the Continent this month looks like being the one devoted to Paul Cezanne at the Fondation Beyeler on the outskirts of Basel. Focusing on the final years of the painter's career, the show will bring together about 80 oils and watercolours. It's on from January 25 to May 25.

At the start of the 20th century, Jan Toorop was known as the most avant-garde artist in the Netherlands. He's included in the Neo-Impressionists show at the National Gallery in London, and a new exhibition at Singer Laren near Hilversum with around 80 exhibits looks at his whole career, with a focus on his Javanese roots. On from January 21 to May 10, The Worlds of Jan Toorop will also include paintings by artists he admired, such as Whistler and Gauguin.

Last chance to see....

Swirling drapery, big hair, glorious colours. Evelyn De Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London is an oddly named exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City, but it certainly deserves a visit if you can get there by January 4; and you pay what you think it's worth.

Images

Mahiole hulu manu (Hawaiian feathered helmet), undated. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Beryl Cook (1926-2008), Elvira's Cafe. Courtesy of ourberylcook.com. © John Cook 2025
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Apples and Oranges, c. 1899, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © Grand Palais RMN (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski
Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919), The Storm Spirits, 1900, De Morgan Foundation

What's On in 2026

2025-12-26T11:25:00.001+00:00

Coming up in 2026: Lots more big exhibitions starring women artists, including Frida Kahlo, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington and Gwen John, as well as a host of names from the 17th-century Low Countries. And women almost certainly embroidered the Bayeux Tapestry, a contender for this year's hottest ticket in London.

Here's a selection of shows that have caught our eye around Britain and Europe, in more or less chronological order; as ever, we make no claim to comprehensiveness, and our choice very much reflects our personal taste.

January

We'll start the year at the Fondation Beyeler on the outskirts of Basel, where they're devoting an exhibition to Paul Cezanne. Focusing on the artist's later years, the show will bring together some 80 oil paintings and watercolours. January 25 to May 25.

February

Two leading British women artists feature in exhibitions opening this month, with the National Museum in Cardiff honouring the best-known female painter Wales has produced, Gwen John, to mark her 150th birthday. Gwen John: Strange Beauties is billed as the first major collection of her work in over 40 years. Running from February 7 to June 28, it will move on to Edinburgh in August before heading in 2027 to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC.

Meanwhile, at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, you can explore the Surrealism and mythology in the paintings of the long-lived and always rebellious Leonora Carrington, now Britain's most expensive woman artist. This show is on from February 18 to July 19.

Yellow was Vincent van Gogh's favourite colour, and at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam they'll be exploring its significance for him and his contemporaries, how it feels and how it smells. Yellow: Beyond Van Gogh's Colour runs from February 13 to May 17 and will include an installation by Olafur Eliasson.

The Dane Vilhelm Hammershøi is one of our favourite painters, with his silent and enigmatic interiors. At the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid from February 17, they're offering a "wide-ranging and comprehensive survey" of his oeuvre with around 100 works, entitled Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens, a show that will also explore links with Dutch Golden Age painters and more modern artists such as Edward Hopper. Until May 31, and then on to Zurich.

We very much enjoyed the overview of the German Impressionist movement when we saw it at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden in October. It moves on to the Museum Barberini in Potsdam as Avant-Garde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany from February 28 to June 7. Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt are the other big names in this show.

And at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, there'll be a big retrospective devoted to one of the most influential and innovative French artists of the mid-19th century: Gustave Courbet, Realist and Rebel. With about 90 paintings, this show is on from February 19 to June 21 before moving to the Museum Folkwang in Essen.

March

One of the exhibitions we're most keen to get to this year is a show aimed very much at correcting the historical record and demonstrating how important woman artists were in the Golden Age in the Low Countries. More than 40 will be highlighted in Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam 1600-1750 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, which is on from March 7 to May 31. Judith Leyster, Clara Peeters, Rachel Ruysch and Maria Sybilla Merian are some of the names to reckon with.

And one of the painters to be seen in Ghent is getting the full retrospective treatment at the Royal Academy in London from March 27 to June 21: Michaelina Wautier. Wautier has only recently been rescued from obscurity, her works reattributed. And the stunning thing is, they include the sort of monumental history paintings you might expect from Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens or Anthony van Dyck. This show comes to London from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Ah yes, van Dyck: He's getting his biggest show in 25 years at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. More than 50 paintings from 32 museums across Europe are being assembled for Van Dyck, the European from March 20 to July 19, which aims to trace the development of the painter's career from Antwerp to Genoa to London. Sounds very tempting.

Etretat in Normandy, with its stunning cliff formations, has been a key motif for French artists for more than two centuries. We've just seen an excellent exhibition on the subject at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, and it's transferring to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt from March 19 under the title Monet on the Normandy Coast: The Discovery of Etretat. Courbet and Eugène Delacroix are among the other stars of a show that runs until July 5.

Auguste Renoir's paintings are now so familiar, says the Musée d’Orsay, that it's hard to comprehend how radical they were. Renoir and Love from March 17 to July 19 aims to re-examine his contribution to Impressionism through the notion of love as the central driving force of his work. There will, of course, be pretty girls in gardens, theatres and dance halls, and they'll be moving on to the National Gallery in London later in the year before heading across the Atlantic to Boston.

Elsewhere in Paris, you can see the work of perhaps the most prominent of all those artists who worked in a naïve or primitive style at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Henri Rousseau: The Ambition of Painting, which is on from March 25 to July 20. This show comes from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, which has one of the two biggest collections of Rousseau's work along with the Orangerie.

April

Peggy Guggenheim became a key figure in the development of modern art when she opened a gallery in London in 1938 that championed the avant-garde. Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice from April 25 to October 19 will bring together key works from her pioneering exhibitions, featuring artists such as Henry Moore, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Wassily Kandinsky. This show transfers to the Royal Academy in London in late autumn before going on to the Guggenheim in New York.

May

Tate Britain is putting on the first major exhibition of James McNeill Whistler's work in Europe for 30 years. Running from May 21 to September 27, the show will feature rarely seen works alongside the American's major paintings. And yes, his mother will be coming.

It's the 800th anniversary of the founding of the magnificent Gothic cathedral at Toledo in central Spain, and to celebrate they're holding a gigantic exhibition of around 350 works of art. Nearly a third of the exhibits are coming from elsewhere and half have never previously been displayed. El Greco, Velázquez and Zurbarán will be among the painters featured; the show is entitled Primada in Spanish, reflecting Toledo's claim to outrank all other episcopal sees in the country, and it will run from May 25 to October 14.

June

There's bound to be a lot of demand for tickets to the Frida Kahlo show at Tate Modern in London. Frida: The Making of an Icon is the name of the exhibition; she's perhaps the most immediately recognisable of all female artists and possibly the most influential, and one of her paintings has just set a record as the most expensive artwork by a woman. With more than 130 Kahlo works as well as exhibits by her contemporaries and followers, the show runs from June 25 all the way through to January 3, 2027.

July

Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Eye that Listens arrives at the Kunsthaus in Zurich from Madrid on July 3 and will be on until October 25.

Along with Georges Seurat, Paul Signac was at the forefront of the Neo-Impressionist movement using dots of unmixed colour popularly known as Pointillism. A new show at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam traces his development in Paul Signac: Symphony of Colours, showing his work alongside those of his contemporaries. On from July 4 to October 11 before moving to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam.

And in western Germany, the Museum Folkwang in Essen will be showing I, Gustave Courbet, from July 17 to November 8 following its transfer from Vienna.

August

The Edinburgh leg of Gwen John: Strange Beauties opens at the National Galleries of Scotland's Modern Two building on August 1 and runs until January 4, 2027.

September

Precise dates for the display of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum have yet to be announced, but it's scheduled to be shown from September to June 2027. Expect demand for tickets to be very high; we may not go, to be honest, because we've seen it several times in situ and once had the good luck to be able to view it with very few others in the museum in Bayeux. But if you've never made it to Normandy, seize the chance; the embroidered story of 1066 is one of the most extraordinary historical artefacts you'll ever encounter.

One of the most distinctive of German Expressionist painters was Franz Marc, founder of the Blue Rider group and known above all for his vibrantly coloured depictions of animals. He was killed in the carnage of World War I. The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf is celebrating his legacy from September 12 to January 24, 2027, in Franz Marc: The Quest for a Better World.

October

More Blue Rider? Travel up the Rhine from Dusseldorf to the Museum Wiesbaden for Women of the Blue Rider, featuring not just the usual suspects in Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin, but 10 other female artists associated with the group as well. Running from October 23 to February 21, 2027, this show will be going on the Museen Böttcherstrasse in Bremen in March 2027.

And it's a short hop from Wiesbaden to the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt for a retrospective of the Italian-Argentinian Surrealist Leonor Fini. On from October 23 to February 28, 2027, this exhibition will feature around 150 of her works.

It could be the perfect show for the grey days of autumn and winter in London: Painting the French Riviera at the Royal Academy. On from October 2 to January 31, 2027, and featuring more than 120 works, the exhibition will relate how Monet and Matisse, Bonnard and Cezanne, to name just a handful, had their creativity whetted by blue seas, blue skies and the warmth of the Sun.

Renoir and Love, featuring 40 paintings, will be on at the National Gallery in London from October 3 to January 31, 2027, and it's then scheduled to travel on to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The Paul Signac exhibition is due to be on at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam from October 24 to February 28, 2027; details weren't on the museum's website at the time of writing.

November

To end the year, we have a couple of blockbusters, starting at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, where they're already warning that you'll need to book in advance for Hals-Rembrandt from November 5 to February 28, 2027. They'll be putting together pairings of paintings by the two greatest portraitists in Dutch 17th-century art, reflecting on similarities and differences.

But back in London, we have a couple of other things to tell you about before we get to the real zinger. First of all at Tate Britain, where they'll be assembling more than 250 works for an examination of the partnership between Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant, central members of the Bloomsbury Group. This show is on from November 12 to April 11, 2027.

Then, Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector starts at the Royal Academy on November 21; it's scheduled to run until March 14, 2027.

So, perhaps saving the best for last, and to quote directly from the organisers: "For the first time in history, see all of Jan van Eyck’s portraits together. Only once, only at the National Gallery." These fragile works, made six centuries ago, set new standards for realism in art, and all nine of them will be on show from November 21 to April 11, 2027, in Van Eyck: The Portraits. We were lucky enough to see the wonderful and short-lived Van Eyck exhibition in Ghent at the start of 2020; we weren't expecting this opportunity to come round so soon.

Images

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves, 1904/05, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Image courtesy of Nelson-Atkins Digital Production & Preservation
Cuno Amiet (1868-1961), The Yellow Hill, 1903, Kunstmuseum Solothurn. Photo: © Kunstmuseum Solothurn/David Aebi
Michaelina Wautier (1604-1689), The Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1655-59. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo: © KHM-Museumsverband
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), The Snake Charmer, 1907, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © Photo: Musée d’Orsay, dist. Grand Palais Rmn/Patrice Schmidt
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art, University of Texas, Austin
Section of Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century. © Bayeux Museum
Leonor Fini (1907-1996), Le Bout du monde (The End of the World), 1948, Private collection. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025/26, Photo: Galerie Minsky, Paris
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Johannes Wtenbogaert, 1633, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The White Cliffs of Normandy

2025-12-20T13:12:00.000+00:00

The White Cliffs of Dover, Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters, the Needles and Durdle Door -- the southern English coastline has plenty of spectacular chalk and limestone features, but just across the Channel the French have got something equally if not more stunning: the chalk cliffs at Etretat.

Surrounding the bay of what was once a small fishing village, three natural arches and a 70-metre freestanding needle of chalk are a breathtaking sight (we were there a couple of years ago), and they're now a huge tourist attraction. But even before the tourists got there, some of the most famous names in French art had discovered a motif of which they rarely tired; as Normandy Tourism puts it: "Nature has carved unusual shapes out of the white cliffs in Etretat, and as a result, this picturesque spot attracted many Impressionist painters, who sought to capture the cliffs on canvas."

Etretat, Beyond the Cliffs: Courbet, Monet, Matisse is devoted to those depictions of the white cliffs of Normandy, though it feels slightly strange to be viewing it several hundred miles to the south at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. To get you in the mood, when you go in, the first thing you see is a digitalised video recreation of the coastline projected right onto the walls, so you can imagine you're viewing the cliffs from a boat on the sea.

Claude Monet's painting from 1885, showing the Porte d’Aval to the west of the village and the needle, conveys just how stupendous these natural phenomena are. Look closer and you'll see those small brown triangles dotted on the waves are boats, perhaps fishing vessels heading out into the Channel.

Monet made nearly 80 canvases of Etretat from the 1860s to the 1880s, and to reach his vantage point on the beach for this one, he will either have come round by boat past these outcrops or climbed the grassy path up the cliff to the right and then come down again with all his painting gear.

You can see how formidable the outcrop ending in the Porte d'Aval appears from the village side in this painting by Eugène Delacroix, made in the 1840s. The cliffs look like a fortress, those solid brushstrokes creating a mass that seems insurmountable. The arch has taken on the form of a buttress, or the hind leg of an animal, or perhaps even, as the writer Guy de Maupassant put it, an elephant's trunk.

Delacroix was an early visitor, but by no means the first artist to succumb to the charms of Etretat. Eugène Isabey made an extended stay at the start of the 1820s; a later chalk-and-watercolour work by him captures a magical first view of the bay from inland.

Delacroix and his fellow artists, though, actually depicted a lot more than just the cliffs. The fishermen, the washerwomen and later the tourists are all painted, recording how the character of Etretat changed when it became a resort as its fame spread.

Gustave Courbet's painting below, from a similar viewpoint to Delacroix's, shows a number of fishing boats, which would have been heaved ashore with the aid of the capstan that's just discernible on the edge of the grass to the left of the largest boat; there's no harbour in Etretat. And just to the left of that large boat, a group of women washing clothes down at the edge of the sea are almost indistinguishable from the pebbles on the shore. The mysterious-looking door in the cliffs opened into a storeroom for fishing gear, we're told on the wall caption.

It all seems so calm, but this painting actually shows the aftermath of a storm, and you can see how disturbed the water around the Porte d'Aval is, with plenty of white foam. The bad weather has actually moved out to sea and darkened the horizon. There appears to be just one boat out there, braving the elements.

That storm, which hit the Channel coast in September 1869, fascinated Courbet. Maupassant later wrote how he encountered the painter working in his studio amid the wind and rain: "From time to time, he would lean his face against the glass and watch the storm." The result was a series of paintings entitled The Wave; rough seas and turbulent clouds, some boats in the early versions. There's no cliffs to identify the location, but it's the spirit of Etretat all the same.

OK, time for one last view of the Porte d'Aval before we turn round to face the east; it's a small Monet pastel from 1885, a red sky at night as the sun sets.

Almost abstract, isn't it. Almost Edvard Munch. Not sure the Norwegian ever made it to Etretat, though he might well have painted something similar if he had.

Time now to look towards the Porte d'Amont, on the other side of the bay. The arch is admittedly a little bit less stupendous than the Porte d'Aval, but it's still a tremendous view. Though not apparently for this group of fishermen, seemingly deep in discussion before setting out. It's a nice day for it, July 14 or Bastille Day, according to the title of this work, painted by Félix Vallotton in 1899, though only the Tricoleur hints at the fact it's the national holiday. The nets spread out on the beach form almost abstract shapes.

We haven't really mentioned the tourists so far, but in the second half of the 19th century the seaside became a place for the well-off to enjoy themselves and to be seen. Some of the most interesting paintings on this theme are by Eugène Le Poittevin, the first artist to have a villa built to establish himself permanently in the area.

A matching pair of mid-1860s Le Poittevins are the sort of multi-incident narratives painted by William Powell Frith in England; more than a decade later, though, than Frith's Ramsgate Sands and with a whole lot more bathing going on. There are swimmers and a canoeist in this first picture, but the focus is very much on the visitors in their finery promenading on the edge of the beach. Those planks of wood formed paths allowing the ladies to avoid getting sand in their shoes or dirtying the bottom of their skirts.

In the second, we're concentrating on the dipping -- you'll note the boat with the ladder on the left -- and on the diving, from the wheeled board in the centre. The lady in grey with the dog seems to have taken a wrong turning.... or is she taking a closer look at the technique of the trim chap about to dive?

Not that many people making the strenuous climb up the grassy clifftop to the sailors' chapel, though.

There are many more artists represented in this show, but they didn't all succumb to the lure of the sea and the cliffs. Camille Corot seems to only give you a glimpse of the water in the background of his paintings, while the best of the works by Henri Matisse shows his daughter in bed in their pension, with just a glimpse of the beach, the sea and some boats visible through the window. And then there's a huge Monet, painted indoors in Etretat in the winter of 1868 to 1869. Lunch, a scene of modern life.

Inspiration in Etretat, in many forms. This is a terrific exhibition, and one we enjoyed more than we thought we might. Some fantastic art and a huge slice of social history into the bargain.

Practicalities

Etretat, Beyond the Cliffs: Courbet, Monet, Matisse is on at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon until March 1. It's open from Wednesday to Monday from 1000 to 1800, though there's a later start on Friday at 1030. The museum is closed on Tuesdays and national holidays, including December 25 and January 1. Full-price tickets to the exhibition cost 12 euros and can be booked online with a timeslot here. Booking ahead may well be advisable; it was pretty full when we visited on a wet Sunday afternoon. We spent more than 2 1/2 hours in the show. There's an exhibition guide in English giving you introductions to each room, but note that wall captions for individual pictures are in French only.

While you're at the MBA, you'll probably want to allow time to visit the permanent collection as well; it's huge and wide-ranging, but to be honest there aren't that many paintings in the gallery that will stop you in your tracks. The museum is located in the centre of Lyon, on the peninsula between the Rivers Rhône and Saône, just across from the City Hall on the Place des Terreaux. Hôtel de Ville is the nearest Metro station.

This show will move on to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt in the spring under the title Monet on the Normandy Coast: The Discovery of Etretat. It can be seen from March 19 to July 5.

Images

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Etretat, l’Aiguille et la Porte d’Aval, 1885, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Image © The Clark Art Institute
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), Etretat, la Porte d’Aval, around 1840 or 1846, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Image © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam/Photo Studio Tromp
Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), La Falaise d’Etretat, après l’orage, 1869-70, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo © Musée d'Orsay, Dist. Grand Palais Rmn/Patrice Schmidt

Gustave Courbet, La Vague, temps d'orage, c. 1869-70, Private collection

Claude Monet, Etretat, l’Aiguille et la Porte d’Aval, 1885, Private collection. Image courtesy Sotheby's

Félix Vallotton (1865-1925), Le 14 juillet à Etretat, 1899, Private collection. Image © Fondation Félix Vallotton, Lausanne
Eugène Le Poittevin (1806-1870), Les Bains de mer, plage d’Etretat, 1865, Private collection. Image courtesy Sotheby's
Eugène Le Poittevin, Bains de mer à Etretat, 1866, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Troyes
Claude Monet, Le Déjeuner, 1868-69, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Image © Städel Museum

Through the Eyes of Félix Vallotton

2025-12-14T09:08:00.000+00:00

An exhibition devoted to one artist can be very satisfying: not only do you get to know them and what made them tick, how they developed and changed, but often you also have a history lesson. And all the pictures too. We've been to just such a solo show in Switzerland, and just like Swiss trains, it all worked beautifully. The artist: Félix Vallotton.

Vallotton Forever: The Retrospective at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, the city of his birth in 1865, is the culmination of a year of Swiss events to mark the 100th anniversary of his death in 1925. It's an absolutely massive show, bringing together about 250 works from public and private collections. But Vallotton's output was so varied, exploring so many different artistic avenues, that it's a constant voyage of discovery.

So where to start? Perhaps in the mid-1890s, when Vallotton, who'd moved to the bright lights of Paris when he was just 16, joined the Nabis, the group of Post-Impressionists around Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis whose painting was characterised by flat expanses of colour.

Among the subjects that fascinated Vallotton were assemblies of people and fashion, and you get both of those in this street scene, entitled En promenade. Two very fashionably dressed women in conversation and an older couple -- the man in a shiny top hat -- create a multi-coloured solid bloc on the left of the picture; on the right, it's just pavement, wall and closed shutters -- a very reduced palette. Connecting the two, pulling the scene towards the right, is the little girl breaking away from the adults, her hand and foot heading for the open space. We loved this painting.

But that's about half-way round the 12 rooms of this show. Let's go back to the beginning (where the first picture, rather disconcertingly, is a study of a woman's bottom) and meet the artist himself, aged 20, looking very serious and straight at you. His eyes don't just follow you, they seem to size you up. Vallotton was a keen observer of details, as you discover on your tour.

And particularly so in the wood engravings and drawings that made his name early in the 1890s. Full of subtle humour, they're illustrations of incidents on the streets of Paris. Crowds assemble, for processions, spectacles, outside shops and theatres, to watch criminals being arrested or holes being dug in the road. A series entitled Paris Intense packed more than 200 figures into just half a dozen images. Vallotton's growing success led to a book of 30 drawings on the same theme for collectors: Les Rassemblements -- gatherings, perhaps.

Below another crowd is forming outside what appears to be an apartment building, the entrance guarded by a couple of policemen. A small child inside peers round the wall by the concierge's lodge. What's that on the ground in the hallway? A bomb! At least, that's what the title says.

Your eye is caught by the moustache of the gendarme on the right, the baker's boy with his basket, the ginger-haired lad at the front in a checked smock. Oh, and the dog, of course. There always seems to be a dog in Vallotton's crowd scenes. And then there's the patterns: the weave of the bread basket, the bricks forming the concierge's office, the wiggly lines in the bigger blocks and the dramatic matching diamond shapes on the door behind the policeman.

In the late 1890s, Vallotton heightened the effect of these graphic works with wood engravings that feature large unbroken expanses of black. One particularly striking example is La Symphonie, with the Nabi artists listening to their muse, Misia Natanson, playing the piano, the skirt of her white dress cut in two by the black piano leg. The culmination of these efforts was the series of 10 engravings entitled Intimités (Intimacies), scenes from the often unhappy love lives of the bourgeoisie.

This is Money, and she doesn't look happy about the development. Other plates in the series include The Lie and The Triumph.

Prints with large flat areas of black and white.... hang on, wasn't the Englishman William Nicholson, who we've just seen at the Pallant in Chichester, doing that in the 1890s as well? "The wood-engraving of M. Vallotton did not come to the notice of the English and American public until some time after that of Mr. Nicholson," reads a footnote in a bound copy of The Century magazine that's on show in Lausanne. "As a matter of fact, M. Vallotton's had precedence."

Vallotton also translated these acerbic scenes of relationships into paint.

In Le provincial (The Man from the Provinces, perhaps), there's no doubt who holds all the cards in this pairing. The woman's black hat and dress seem to form a set of jaws ready to consume their prey, and the imbalance is emphasised by the size of those glasses.

As at the last Vallotton show we saw, at London's Royal Academy in 2019, we're not allowed to bring you a picture of the stunning triptych Le Bon Marché, showing the crowded and fashionable Paris department store. In the centre panel, shoppers stream down the grand staircase, as if they were worshippers processing up the aisle of a cathedral. Bargains are to be had on both wings, too, and while the owners of the painting don't want you to photograph it, they obviously don't mind licensing the right-hand panel with the woman in the fabulously patterned red-and-black jacket for a book cover (Zola's novel The Ladies' Delight was inspired by the same store).

A bit more fashion? Oh go on.... Let's dress up to go to the beach before we head upstairs to the second floor to see what Vallotton did next.

And the answer is, to a large extent, nudes and landscapes, which formed a sizeable part of his output after the start of the 20th century. There are a lot of nudes, perhaps too many; if there was one section of this show that could have been trimmed, this was it. Vallotton's most famous may be La Blanche et la Noire, an updated take on Manet's Olympia that features a sleeping naked white woman and a clothed black woman who's sitting on the bed looking at her while smoking a cigarette. They're lovers, the wall caption states without any sourcing. Maybe there's a bit too much modern overinterpretation going on here. Also on show is The Turkish Bath, with a dachshund joining the ladies.

Vallotton was Swiss, but he became a French citizen as well in 1900. When he tried to sign up for the French army on the outbreak of World War I, he was turned down because he was approaching 50. He was plunged into depression. In this 1914 self-portrait in his dressing gown, he looks a bitter man, older than his years. This was apparently the first time he'd portrayed himself with a palette and brushes; the red, white and blue of the French tricolour can just be glimpsed as paints on the top edge of the palette.

How to paint the horrors of the war? His still life of red peppers from 1915 has one of the peppers reflected in a knife, making it look like it's stained with blood.

Later, Vallotton travelled to the front as a war artist. His 1917 painting Verdun presents an abstracted image of conflict: Cloud, smoke, fire, rays of light, rain, destruction all come together in a landscape of chaos.

But landscapes of beauty are what we end with. Often surprising canvases with simplified lines, composed as a synthesis of motifs, rather than reflecting any precise reality of countryside; shorelines, rivers, hills. In Le rayon, a shaft of sunlight breaks through into an avenue of trees; in a pond at Honfleur in Normandy, the duckweed creates a spectre-like shape in the water. Let's stay near Honfleur for our last picture, the beach at Vasouy, where Vallotton's eye takes us from the grass-topped cliff on the left across the sand with its groynes to the waters of the English Channel. Just two small figures provide a human presence.

Vallotton was a very prolific artist, and while this is a huge exhibition including a short film, it's by no means exhaustive. One painting we did miss was The Ball from the Musée d'Orsay, with its unusual perspective. But there's always more to see with Vallotton and we look forward to our next meeting. As for this show, it's probably the best we've seen all year, in a fantastic exhibition space. If we gave marks, it would be 10 out of 10.

Practicalities

Vallotton Forever: The Retrospective is on at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne until February 15. The museum is normally open from 1000 to 1800 from Tuesday to Sunday, with lates on Thursday until 2000. It's closed Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Standard admission is 15 Swiss francs, about £14 (Given how expensive most things are in Switzerland, that's ludicrously good value, cheaper for example than the very small Joseph Wright of Derby show at the National Gallery in London). We spent a good three hours in the exhibition, so don't arrive too late in the day. There's an exhibition guide in English giving a translation of the main wall texts introducing each of the 12 rooms, but note that any captions for individual paintings and graphic works are only in French.

The MCBA couldn't be more conveniently located, right next to Lausanne's main railway station. You can see the tracks (not to mention Lake Geneva and the Alps) as you climb the main staircase.

Images

Félix Vallotton (1865-1925), En promenade, c. 1895, Private collection. Photo: Peter Schälchli, Zurich
Félix Vallotton, Self-Portrait at the Age of 20, 1885, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne. Photo: MCBA, Lausanne
Félix Vallotton, La bombe from Les Rassemblements, 1895/1902-03, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne
Félix Vallotton, L’argent, 1898, from the Intimités (Intimacies) series, 1897-98, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne. Photo: MCBA, Lausanne
Félix Vallotton, Le provincial, 1909, Pauline Art Foundation. Photo: All rights reserved
Félix Vallotton, Sur la plage, 1899, Private collection
Félix Vallotton, Autoportrait à la robe de chambre, 1914, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne
Félix Vallotton, Poivrons rouges, 1915, Kunstmuseum Solothurn. © 2025, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Photo: Kunstmuseum Solothurn
Félix Vallotton, La grève blanche, Vasouy, 1913, Private collection

The A to Z of William Nicholson

2025-12-09T20:05:00.000+00:00

What begins with an Alphabet chart, shows off some choice Silverware, portrays Queen Victoria, highlights the horrors of World War I and crosses the Ocean? Oh yes, and also includes a Rabbit, the star of a classic children's book. It's the William Nicholson exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester.

This is the first major show of Nicholson's work for more than 20 years and it covers the full and very varied range of his art -- including landscapes, portraits, posters and book illustrations -- in a career that lasted from the Victorian age until the middle of the 20th century. Among his paintings, though, it's the still lifes, often featuring glittering silver, that stand out. This Silver Casket and Red Leather Box conveys just how skilled he was at rendering materials and reflections.

You can marvel at the accuracy of his reproduction of the silver tea caddy as the original is displayed in a glass case alongside. Of course the reflection in the latter is different: It's you, not the white gloves. The caddy was made by a celebrated 17th-century silversmith, Hester Bateman, whose work Nicholson collected. He praised her "subtle simplicity", and you might say the same about his still lifes.

Another incredibly luminous example is this painting known as the Gold Jug, though it's actually more of a tankard, and it's possibly brass.

The vessel seems to shimmer against the rough backdrop, picking up reflections from all around. Queen Camilla, then the Duchess of Cornwall, told Country Life magazine a few years ago that this work, which hung in Clarence House, was her favourite painting. The work was acquired by the future Queen Elizabeth II in 1942, and it's a wee bit of a coup for the Pallant to have borrowed it for this show.

But let's get back to the beginning. Nicholson was born in 1872 and studied at Hubert von Herkomer's art school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where he met his wife Mabel, a small retrospective of whose work we saw last year. He formed an early partnership with Mabel's brother James Pryde, creating bold, revolutionary poster designs under the aliases of J & W Beggarstaff.

It's Nicholson's printmaking that dominates the first room of this show, with that alphabet we mentioned earlier, his first commission from the London publisher William Heinemann. A for Artist and B for Beggar are on a separate wall, but you can see the 24 letters from C to Z below, with E for Executioner and Q represented by a Quaker. It's a captivating and humorous mix right through the social strata: a Countess, a Dandy and a Lady are accompanied by a Flowergirl, a Milkmaid and a Yokel.

Some of Nicholson's prints are notable for their large areas of pure black and white, and there's very little shading in this print of the unmistakable Queen Victoria with a Skye terrier. It was published in the New Review to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, 60 years on the throne.

And it was a great success. The portrait, which could be bought as an original hand-coloured woodcut, proved a popular memento. Oscar Wilde wrote that the one he owned was displayed in his chalet because "every poet should gaze at the portrait of his Queen, all day long."

In Nicholson's alphabet prints, the letter V stood for Villain, but it was another V from a couple of decades later, The Velveteen Rabbit, that stole our hearts.

The story of the little stuffed rabbit who wanted to become real, written by Margery Williams, was published with illustrations by Nicholson in 1922. The copy on display belonged to his daughter Liza. There's a lot more to admire in this section of this show, including Clever Bill, written as well as illustrated by Nicholson, the tale of a toy soldier accidentally left behind when his owner packs for a holiday, and the amusingly titled Book of Blokes.

That Mabel Nicholson exhibition we mentioned earlier was held in what was the couple's home in Rottingdean, to the east of Brighton, in the years before World War I. William frequently painted Sussex landscapes, and they're eye-catching and evocative. The monumentality of the cliffs at Rottingdean bursts out at you when you notice the tiny figures in the curve here just before the flat grassy top of the sheer chalk drop starts to rise into a steep hill.

But the beauty and peace of their lives was soon to be shattered: in 1918 he lost Mabel to the flu epidemic, and just before the war ended his son Tony was killed. This painting below is a moving and poignant memorial to those who died fighting. Not a portrait of any individual, it was commissioned by Lady Denman, whose younger brother was also killed in action. It's the first time it's ever been shown in public.

Nicholson did remarry within a relatively short time. The picture below, Lady in Grey, is believed to show his second wife, Edie, herself a war widow and an artist.

Displayed close by is a dress belonging to Edie made of fabric that was hand-painted by Nicholson; there's a rendering of this portrait among the images on the dress.

Let's end with one of the most striking exhibits in this show: a painting with a curious vertical perspective. Nicholson sailed across the Atlantic at the start of the 1920s and recorded this scene of Sport on the SS Cedric. Nicholson's viewpoint is from the thinly populated upper deck in first class. But all the fun seems to be going on down below on the cheaper lower deck.

It's a disconcerting view; that glimpse of the sea between the two sections of the ship's superstructure and the hive of activity below.

This is a fine show that gives you a real feel for Nicholson, the man and the artist; well worth the trip to Chichester.

Practicalities

William Nicholson is on at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester until May 10. The gallery is open from 1000 to 1700 Tuesdays to Saturdays and 1000 to 1600 on Sundays and bank holidays. However, it's closed on December 24-26 and on New Year's Day. Full-price admission is £17, including a £2 Gift Aid donation, and you can book online here. Allow yourself perhaps 90 minutes for this extensive exhibition.

The gallery is just a few minutes walk from Chichester station, to which there's a train every half-hour from London Victoria Mondays to Saturdays. The journey takes about 90 minutes. Hourly trains on Sundays take longer.

Images

William Nicholson (1872-1949), Silver Casket and Red Leather Box, 1920, Private collection
William Nicholson, Gold Jug, 1937, Lent by His Majesty the King. © Royal Collection Enterprises Ltd 2025. All Rights Reserved
William Nicholson, C-Z from An Alphabet, published 1897, UK Government Art Collection
William Nicholson, HM The Queen (Queen Victoria) from Twelve Portraits, published 1899, Private collection
William Nicholson, Cover illustration for The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, published 1922, Private collection

William Nicholson, Cliffs at Rottingdean, 1909, Southampton City Art Gallery

William Nicholson, A Soldier of the 1914-18 War, 1917, Private collection
William Nicholson, Lady in Grey, 1918, Osbourne Samuel Gallery
William Nicholson, Sport on the SS Cedric, 1921, Estate of Mirabel Cecil

A Meagre Serving of Derby's Finest

2025-11-21T17:55:00.000+00:00

If you're thinking about seeing Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery in London, be warned: There's not a huge amount to this show. The gallery describes it as "the first major exhibition dedicated to the British artist’s 'candlelight' paintings". Major? There are actually only 10 of Joseph Wright's oil paintings in this smallish display, and while they certainly include some of his finest, it's not a lot for your money.

Especially as the star attraction is An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, Wright's masterpiece of 1768, which you can usually see for free just yards away in another room in the gallery, in rather less cramped circumstances. Without a shadow of a doubt, it's an astonishing painting, somehow encapsulating the 18th-century Enlightenment -- the advance of reason and science -- in one image. Whenever we're in the National Gallery we almost always stop by to look at it for a minute or two.

There is so much to see -- not just the conducting of the scientific experiment and the reactions (or non-reactions) of the people involved -- but the artistic efforts and challenges faced by Wright in creating this richly textured work. You can take your time exploring the composition, the positioning of the figures, their emotions and postures, the clothing and the objects.

The lecturer or master of ceremonies -- what would have been called a natural philosopher in Wright's time -- who surely has one of the most memorable facial expressions (and hairstyles) in British art, has demonstrated how the removal of air from the glass jar using the air pump has rendered the cockatiel almost lifeless. He stands ready to restore the air supply (the man at the front left appears to be counting down the time with a watch in his hand) but the question is, of course, will the bird revive -- or expire? One of the two girls cannot watch; the smaller looks anxiously up at the apparatus. An older man, front right, is deep in thought, but the couple on the left only have eyes for each other.

And then there is the lighting. The main source is a candle behind a liquid-filled glass vessel containing a skull, but there is also a full moon, partly obscured by clouds, that is soon to be shut out by the boy closing the curtains. This is not simply chiaroscuro but tenebrism, ramping those contrasts between light and dark up a notch.

What about the remaining pictures? Well, half the oils (as well as a pastel and a wall of mezzotints) are from Derby Museum and Art Gallery, which holds the biggest collection of Wright's work. And hanging at right angles to the Air Pump is Wright's second most-famous scientific composition, A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in Place of the Sun.

An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system, showing how the planets move. There is rapt attention from the attendees, at least the older ones who are trying to take it all in. The younger children are fascinated in their own way. The lecturer appears to be pausing to ensure the note-taker on the left has got it all down correctly.

Now, you do get to see an actual orrery from around 1750 in a glass case alongside the painting, on loan from Dumfries House in Ayrshire. There's also an historic air pump on show, albeit different from the one in the painting and minus the poor bird. But while somewhat interesting, they don't add very much to the exhibition. We'd rather they'd sourced more of Wright's art.

And not just from Derby, which is also the home of The Alchymist.

While searching for the philosopher's stone, the substance that will turn base metal into gold, the alchemist has in fact discovered white phosphorus. A eureka moment! This composition has a triple light source: the experimental vessel, the candle on the table to the left, and the moon glimpsed through the Gothic window at the back on the right.

A further Derby picture is a nocturnal outdoor scene depicting a man filling in fox holes to ensure that the animals won't be able to escape back into their dens when they're being chased by mounted huntsmen and their dogs in the morning.

The lantern by the fast-flowing river and the light of the moon reveal small details: a repair to the blade of the spade, the workman's ragged trousers, his dog and the rump and tail of his white horse grazing just off the bank. All amid the Derbyshire landscape.

The most striking of the loans from private collections is this one: Two Boys Fighting over a Bladder, which they're using in rather a rough game.

The candle in this picture has just been knocked over and is surely likely to go out within seconds, extinguishing any source of light. As it is, this painting has an incredibly almost abstract feel for something created in the 18th century. The inflated bladder and the boy seen from the back are just shapes.

This show demonstrates. according to the National Gallery, how "through his unflinching scenes of people watching, Wright of Derby proposes moral questions about acts of looking." That feels a little bit over-philosophising. It's surely all about the light, the drama, the sense of exploration. Did we feel we got a lot out of this exhibition? No, to be honest. Before going, we'd refreshed our memories of Wright's work by reading a 1990s book about him from the Tate's British Artists series, now out of print. And we can't say we learned much new. We'd love to see a great comprehensive Joseph Wright exhibition, encompassing all aspects of his output, such as his views of industry, portraiture and scenes of natural phenomena. This rather thin show isn't what we were hoping for.

Practicalities

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows is on at the National Gallery in London until May 10. The gallery is open daily from 1000 to 1800, and until 2100 on Fridays (closed December 24-26 and January 1). We spent about 45 minutes in the exhibition. Standard adult ticket prices for this show are £16.50 including Gift Aid, £14 without. You can book ahead online with a timeslot here but it's unlikely to be necessary.

The gallery is on the north side of Trafalgar Square, just a couple of minutes from Charing Cross or Leicester Square stations on the rail and Underground networks.

The show will be going on to Derby Museum and Art Gallery in the summer of 2026; details to be announced.

Also on at the National Gallery

Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists, starring the Pointillism of Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Théo van Rysselberghe, is, by contrast, the most enjoyable exhibition we've been to all year. However, if you're planning to see both these shows and expect to visit another paid-for exhibition at this venue over the next 12 months, you'd be well advised to consider taking out membership, given the level of ticket prices.

Images

Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797), An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768. © The National Gallery, London
Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in Place of the Sun, 1764-66, Derby Museum and Art Gallery. © Derby Museums
Joseph Wright of Derby, The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and Prays for the Successful Conclusion of his Operation as Was the Custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers, 1771, reworked 1795, Derby Museum and Art Gallery. © Derby Museums
Joseph Wright of Derby, An Earthstopper on the Banks of the Derwent, 1773, Derby Museum and Art Gallery. © Derby Museums
Joseph Wright of Derby, Two Boys Fighting over a Bladder, about 1767-70, Private collection, care of Omnia Art Ltd. © Omnia Art Ltd

Let There Be Light

2025-11-18T11:29:00.000+00:00

Right at the northern tip of Denmark, where two seas meet under endless skies: Skagen, a fishing village that developed into a late 19th-century artists' colony. One of those artists was actually from Skagen; her parents ran Brøndum's Hotel in the village. Anna Brøndum went on to become Denmark's most famous woman painter: Anna Ancher.

You won't find any paintings by her in any public collection in Britain (we know, we've used that line before when writing about several other artists), and, rather oddly, she doesn't even get a mention in Katy Hessel's The Story of Art without Men. The illumination you need is provided at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south-east London, in Anna Ancher: Painting Light. She had a way with light, coming in through windows and casting shadows on walls, reflecting on the sea, breaking through the trees in her garden. These are generally very intimate, understated pictures, yet sometimes quite breathtaking.

Virtually all the works in this show are from the Skagens Museum, just across the road from Brøndum's Hotel and very close to the house that Anna and her artist husband Michael lived in for many years. And the interiors of both the hotel and the house figure repeatedly. We've never made it to Skagen, sadly; we had a trip planned in 2020 but you-know-what got in the way. A series of videos half way through this exhibition sets Skagen and the Anchers in context.

We'll start off in the hotel, in what was known as the Blue Room. This painting depicts the Anchers' daughter Helga, also in blue, perched on a chair, knitting or crocheting. But the focus is very much the sunlight coming in from the sliver of window to the right. It falls most notably on the wall at the back, casting a shadow from the pot plant on the windowsill; you also see the sun's rays on the carpet, cut in half by the girl's silhouette. Perhaps the brightest point in the whole painting is Helga's blonde hair, bathed in sunlight.

Very Impressionistic -- Ancher had made a couple of visits to France in the 1880s -- and quite mesmerising. When displayed in Copenhagen in 1892, though, one newspaper critic complained that certain artists had become "too modern".

More than two decades on, that critic, if still alive, would surely have been horrified by another Ancher picture, this time of the annex of the hotel. There's not a thing in it, except the light.

It's rather an odd choice of subject -- the corner of an empty room with one door closed, key in lock, and another open, leading into an empty room -- yet it's captivating. The rectangular-shaped blocks of light on the pale walls and door, ranging from cream through many shades of yellow to golden orange, are almost like a puzzle. Where exactly is the source of the rays? The lines of the floorboards and open door draw you in through the space and the billowing green curtain gives a feel of airiness.

It's a picture that might remind you of the often unpeopled interiors by Ancher's Danish contemporary, Vilhelm Hammershøi, though Hammershøi wasn't part of the Skagen group.

Of course, light streaming in through windows was a feature of Dutch Golden Age painting -- Johannes Vermeer in particular -- and there's no mistaking the Dutch influence in one of the earliest paintings by Ancher in this show, which is also one of the first pictures you see.

The scullery, the preparation of food, the red skirt and an open door to a room beyond. You could easily be in 17th-century Holland. The curtain that shields the maid from the gaze of passers-by in the street also adds a golden glow to the cramped dark workspace, providing a hint of Ancher's fascination with the rays of the sun. And we loved those carrots on the trestle table on the left, almost protruding out of the painting.

Ancher's husband Michael appears in a number of the paintings on show in Dulwich, most notably eating his Lunch Before the Hunt. You'll note the dog sitting attentively, perhaps looking forward to getting a morsel from his master's plate. It's a very homely scene, and the distinctive yellow settee in the Anchers' house in Skagen is another repeated motif. But your eye is, as ever, drawn to the sunlight, distilled through the windows and curtains, on the wall behind the sitter.

Interiors are very much the mainstay of Ancher's work, but it's time to move outdoors, for some views that have an air of the abstract about them.

The Old Window is again one of those pictures that doesn't seem to have much to it. A detail of a white-painted window from the artists' home, surrounded by greenery, but lifted onto another plane by the shocking, absolutely thickly applied red of the geraniums in the centre. A real eye-catcher.

Meanwhile, just outside the house in Skagen is the street called Daphnesvej.

Another painting where the subject is thoroughly mundane; the sandy road surface takes up the largest part of the image. But just look at the shadows cast by the houses on the right, while the ruts cut by carriage and cart wheels lead your eye to the house at the end. There's no real focus here, just almost abstract shapes and nuanced colours. But something intriguing and alluring about the picture holds your attention.

Ancher had long been thought of as mainly a painter of interiors, but a whole hoard of landscape sketches were uncovered about a decade ago. We were particularly struck by this undated Blue Sunset, which is in the final room of the exhibition.

It's that same fascinating sunlight, isn't it, with the sky and the sea almost merging into one another as the day ends. And again, this is an almost abstract canvas.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable show, though a handful of religious or spiritually themed paintings near the end left us rather cold. If you're in need of some extra light exposure amid the winter gloom, Anna Ancher in Dulwich may provide the boost you're looking for.

Practicalities

Anna Ancher: Painting Light is on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until March 8. It's open from 1000 to 1700 Tuesdays to Sundays, and standard tickets cost £20 including a Gift Aid donation, £18 without. To be sure of getting in when you want to, you can book online here. It was quite full when we went on a Tuesday lunchtime. Allow 60-75 minutes to explore the show and watch the accompanying videos. Tickets also cover entry to the gallery's permanent collection, which includes a number of Rembrandts.

The gallery is about 10 minutes walk from both West Dulwich station, for trains from Victoria, and North Dulwich, for trains from London Bridge.

Images

Anna Ancher (1859-1935), Sunlight in the Blue Room, 1891. Image courtesy of Skagens Museum
Anna Ancher, Interior, Brøndum’s Annex, c. 1916. Image courtesy of Skagens Museum

Anna Ancher, The Maid in the Kitchen, 1883-86, The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen
Anna Ancher, Lunch Before the Hunt, 1903, Skagens Museum
Anna Ancher, The Old Window, 1914, Skagens Museum
Anna Ancher, Daphnesvej, c. 1915, Skagens Museum

Anna Ancher, Blue Sunset, undated, Skagens Museum

New Exhibitions in November

2025-10-31T07:47:00.001+00:00

It's surely an anniversary the Tate has long been counting down to: JMW Turner was born in 1775, John Constable in 1776. To mark the 250 years of two of the country's greatest painters, Turner and Constable is on at Tate Britain from November 27 to April 12. Rivals with very different approaches to landscape painting, they were both hugely influential. More than 170 works are promised, with Turner's Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons and Constable's White Horse coming home from the US for the show.

Before those two were even born, Joseph Wright of Derby had already painted his most famous picture, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. It'll be part of Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery from November 7 to May 10, which is intended to challenge the view of Wright as just a painter of light and shade and to illustrate how he used the night to explore deeper and more sombre themes. Only 20 or so works, however, making it a disappointingly small show for such a key British artist.

Elsewhere in London, there's another overseas visitor at the Wallace Collection. Caravaggio's Cupid, a free exhibition from November 26 to April 12, showcases the artist's Victorious Cupid from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, which has never been seen in public before in the UK. It's displayed with two classical sculptures that were part of the same collection it belonged to in Rome four centuries ago.

We're very much looking forward to the new show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, featuring Denmark's most famous woman painter, who's scarcely known in Britain. Anna Ancher: Painting Light, on from November 4 to March 8, will have more than 40 works, including loans from major Danish collections. Ancher was prominent among the painters of the Skagen art colony who settled at the northern tip of Jutland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, incorporating Impressionist and realist influences into their work.

The indefatigable David Hockney has another exhibition starting in London, following his massive retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. From November 7, you can see just-completed pictures in David Hockney: Some Very, Very, Very New Paintings Not Yet Shown in Paris at Annely Juda Fine Art in the West End. Also in this show is the first British presentation of The Moon Room, Hockney's iPad renderings of the surroundings of his Normandy home by night, which we caught a glimpse of in Rouen last year. Until February 28 (after which there's more Hockney at the Serpentine Galleries from mid-March).

The main winter exhibition at Chichester's Pallant House Gallery is a retrospective of the work of William Nicholson (1872-1949), the first major show about him in over 20 years. Nicholson, head of a renowned artistic family, was known for still lifes, portraits, landscapes, posters and book illustrations, and the curators promise rarely seen works. November 22 to May 10.

At Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex, they're staging the first major exhibition in 25 years dedicated to Roger Fry as a painter. Best known as a critic, writer and curator, Fry was instrumental in bringing Post-Impressionism to Britain just before World War I, shaking up the art world on this side of the Channel. This show concentrates, though, on his own artistic output, particularly from his time in Paris in the 1920s. November 15 to March 15.

Over in Suffolk, Gainsborough's House in Sudbury is examining the relationship with the county of a very different artist: Stanley Spencer. Starting on November 15, Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk focuses on Spencer's trips there in the 1920s and 30s; he married his first wife, Hilda Carline, in Suffolk in 1925. This show continues until March 22, after which it moves to the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, Berkshire, starting in April.

Finnish painters from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: There's been a series of exhibitions featuring them in western Europe over the past few years, and the latest to get a retrospective is Pekka Halonen at the Petit Palais in Paris. He called himself the "Painter of Snow". This show runs from November 4 to February 22, after which it moves to the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede in the eastern Netherlands and then, next September, to Ordrupgaard near Copenhagen.

One of the most compelling motifs in French painting since the 19th century has been the spectacular cliffs around the bay in the Normandy fishing village and holiday resort of Etretat. Stunning in real life, stunning on canvas. What a fantastic subject for an exhibition, but you'll have to head south to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon for Etretat, Beyond the Cliffs: Courbet, Monet, Matisse from November 29 to March 1. And then from mid-March, at the Städel in Frankfurt.

Meanwhile, in western France, they're preparing for the squally showers coming in off the Atlantic. In the Rain is the big winter exhibition at the Musée d'arts in Nantes from November 7 to March 1, looking at how precipitation became a favoured subject for painters, photographers and filmmakers. Almost 150 works, and Turner, Pissaro, Tissot and Caillebotte are among the artists featured. This show is due to move on to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen in 2026, though there's no mention of it on their website as yet.

If you've been unable to make it to the centenary Surrealism exhibition that's been doing the rounds of Brussels, Paris, Madrid and Hamburg in various guises, and you're on the eastern seaboard of the United States this winter, you've one last chance. Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 opens at the Philadelphia Art Museum on November 8, featuring around 200 works by more than 70 artists, among them René Magritte and Salvador Dalí, Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington. Until February 16.

Last chance to see....

You'll have to be quick if you want to catch the last weekend of Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists at the Pallant in Chichester, which ends on November 2. It's a big, wide-ranging show with lots to discover.

And in Surrey, November 9 is the last day for Scented Visions: Smell in Art 1850-1915 at the Watts Gallery, near Guildford. Explore Pre-Raphaelite art in a new way....

Images

JMW Turner (1775-1851), The Passage of Mount St Gothard from the centre of Teufels Broch (Devil’s Bridge), 1804. © Abbot Hall, Kendal (Lakeland Arts Trust)
Anna Ancher (1859-1935), The Harvesters, 1905, Courtesy of Skagens Museum
Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), Southwold, 1937, Aberdeen Art Gallery. © Estate of Stanley Spencer; Image provided by Aberdeen City Council (Archives, Gallery & Museums Collection)
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), Rue de Paris, Temps de pluie, 1877, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. Photo: © Musée Marmottan Monet/Studio Christian Baraja SLB
GF Watts (1817-1904), Ellen Terry (Choosing), 1864, National Portrait Gallery, London. © National Portrait Gallery

It's Impressionism, Just Not as We Know It

2025-10-22T17:08:00.000+01:00

There's not a haystack, waterlily or cliff-face to be seen; you won't be gazing into the box at the theatre or contemplating steaming locomotives in the station, because we're not looking at the French Impressionists for a change; we've crossed the Rhine (literally; we flew into Strasbourg and took the train) to explore Impressionism in Germany: Max Liebermann and his Times at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden.

Yes, there are Caillebotte-like yachts and Renoir-style children, intimate interiors and cityscapes -- similar themes, though the treatment is often quite different -- but then there are also actors on the stage, Bible stories and views of orphanages, subjects the French never really tackled. Oh, and beer gardens. The three big names in this show are Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth and above all Max Liebermann, the doyen of the German Impressionist movement. And a man with a passion for horticulture; Liebermann's garden on the outskirts of Berlin is as important in German Impressionism as Monet's in Giverny for the French.

Liebermann bought land in Wannsee on the south-western edge of the German capital in 1909, built a villa and had an extensive garden planted. Over nearly two decades, he created more than 200 images of the property, repeating the same view in series. Not so dissimilar to Monet, really. There's a certain semi-abstract quality to these works, and there are parallels there, too.

But Impressionism in Germany was a late movement. Many, if not most, of the works on show here were made after 1900, when French art had already moved on (on from Pointillism as well, largely). And even in Germany, Expressionism and New Objectivity had taken over. Liebermann, however, remained true to his style. Here's how the artist painted himself in 1922:

Liebermann's history is inextricably linked with that of Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jewish, cosmopolitan, forward-looking; even though hugely successful, he didn't really fit into imperial Germany, whose government initially refused to let him accept a Légion d'Honneur from France, the former enemy, in 1889. Anti-Semitism marred his later years; he died in 1935, two years after the Nazis seized power, and his widow Martha committed suicide in 1943 to avoid deportation to a concentration camp.

More of Liebermann in a bit, but let's move on to Corinth, whose pictures of his wife Charlotte at home are notable for their fresh colours and rapid brushwork.

They're certainly among the most Impressionistic works in this show, in which you can actually find quite a range of painting styles, from the rather precise realism of Fritz van Uhde's 1880s paintings of the Netherlands, inspired by the Dutch Golden Age, to late works by Corinth that are on the verge of Expressionism.

Out on the water, now, for a another popular theme with the Impressionists but with perhaps more robust brushwork than you might see in France.

It's 1915, but you wouldn't know there was a war going on from Philipp Franck's painting of the Wannsee lake; Liebermann's house will be somewhere in the vicinity.

There's a fair-sized section in this show with pictures of children, some a bit twee, several, it has to be said, not too much in the spirit of Impressionism. One picture that really is, though, is this Renoir-like Portrait of a Small Girl by Dora Hitz, who spent 10 years in Paris. Très français, n'est-ce pas?

There are 108 works in this exhibition; only seven are by women. Liebermann provides 37, and here's one of his that we've included because it illustrates just how different German Impressionism could be (it's not that we particularly like it as an artwork).

Delilah, a femme fatale if ever there was one, has just cut off Samson's hair, having prised from the Israelite warrior the secret that he would lose his superhuman strength if he lost his locks. The audioguide said Liebermann had terrible trouble finishing it; we found it unsettling, if not brutal and disturbing.

This picture seems to have been an attempt to compete with dramatic paintings of actors on the stage by Slevogt, whose Champagne Aria, featuring the Portuguese opera singer Francisco d'Andrade, is really the first thing you see as you enter the show.

Slevogt's Dancer in Gold is certainly Impressionistic, but you feel it has its roots more in Vienna than in Paris. That's not to say Slevogt didn't do things the French might be more at home with; you should see his hollyhocks.

Let's end our tour with a couple of names you've possibly never heard of. One of the handful of women on show here is Eva Stort, a pupil of Liebermann who gets two paragraphs in the English-language version of Wikipedia, and not much more in German. Her 1890 view out of her window in the Berlin district of Schöneberg transcends the boundaries between interior, still life and cityscape.

And there's more of the city from Lesser Ury: in a side room, a wall of arresting Berlin scenes, capturing incidents on the street at night and in the rain. He was fascinated by artificial street lighting and drew inspiration from Degas and Monet.

He put us in mind of John Atkinson Grimshaw, or maybe LS Lowry's teacher, Adolphe Valette. A French Impressionist....

There are some not very likeable paintings in this show, there are some that seem peripheral, but there's also much to enjoy. It's a thoroughly absorbing exhibition that introduced us to new names and broadened our knowledge, and we're really glad to have crossed the Rhine into little-explored territory. Auf Wiedersehen....

Practicalities

Impressionism in Germany: Max Liebermann and his Times is on at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden until February 8. It's open Tuesday to Sunday (plus public holidays) from 1000 to 1800, though the museum is closed December 24 and 31. Full-price tickets cost 16 euros and can be bought online here. We spent a good 2 1/2 hours in this extensive show, not including a break for a coffee halfway through. The audioguide, which costs 5 euros, is very informative.

The Museum Frieder Burda is close to the old town of Baden-Baden, in the Lichtenthaler Allee park that runs along the river from the elegant 19th-century buildings at the heart of what was once Europe's most fashionable spa. The main rail station on the line from Karlsruhe to Basel is several kilometres away from the centre, but linked by frequent buses; Augustaplatz or Leopoldplatz are convenient stops.

After it closes in Baden-Baden, the exhibition moves on to the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, where it will open on February 28. You could easily combine a visit with a trip to Liebermann's villa, only 10 kilometres away.

Images

Max Liebermann (1847-1935), The Flowerbeds in the Wannsee Garden to the Northwest, 1915/16, Kunstmuseum Solothurn
Max Liebermann, Self-Portrait in Suit at the Easel, 1922, Galerie Bastian, Berlin. Photo: Galerie Bastian, Berlin
Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), Woman Reading, 1911, Private collection. Photo: Ketterer Kunst GmbH & Co. KG

Philipp Franck (1860-1944), Wannsee, 1915, Private collection, Frankfurt am Main. Photo: Kunsthaus Lempertz, Fuis Photographie, Cologne
Dora Hitz (1853-1924), Portrait of a Small Girl, before 1897, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photo: bpk/Nationalgalerie, SMB
Max Liebermann, Samson and Delilah, 1902, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Photo: Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Max Slevogt (1868-1932), Dancer in Gold, 1895, Landesmuseum Mainz
Eva Stort (1855-1936), View from the Window (Schöneberg), 1890, David Ragusa Collection. Photo: Achim Kukulies, Dusseldorf

Lesser Ury (1861-1931), Nocturnal Street Scene, Berlin, c. 1915-20, Dr Matthias Wilkening Foundation