Let me save you the trouble of reading reviews when deciding whether to go and see this small exhibition at the National Gallery. Critics don’t like it. This review in the Guardian is particularly entertaining, and likens Pre-Raphaelite art in the UK’s regional gallery collections to a fatberg (I love a vicious review, don’t you?). […]
Ah, January. A time for great new projects, an aim of self-improvement, a flurry of activity, and then… who knows? Having challenged myself to take advantage of the many opportunities London provides of hearing talks, lectures and panel discussions on a range of interesting topics, I found myself this week attending two at the National […]
Unlike the Late Turner exhibition which I reviewed recently, the National Gallery didn’t create this exhibition on late works by Rembrandt from a position of reeducation or reinterpretation. The works on display are firmly within the Dutch Golden Age and have always been respected as masterful works (and quite a high number of them as […]
I was definitely in my art-geeky element in this exhibition, based on research by the National Gallery’s scientific department, and largely using works from the permanent collection. As the name suggests, it’s about making colour – the exhibition space is divided like a colour wheel, with rooms moving from blue to purple through green, yellow […]
The National Portrait Gallery‘s exhibition juxtaposing two pioneering female photographers, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In creates a curious tension in which the pairing both makes sense and doesn’t. Read on to discover why. Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron Francesca Woodman. Julia Margaret Cameron. Do you recognise the names? I […]
Those with around £20 and a few hours in London to spare this weekend should get themselves to the National Portrait Gallery, where the exhibition Cézanne Portraits is due to close on Sunday. The exhibition is organised by the Musée d’Orsay and the National Gallery of Art in Washington as well as the National Portrait Gallery, and […]
If you were in charge of exhibition programming, and you had a passion for a subject which perhaps wasn’t quite right for your museum, what would you do? It’s an interesting question, which could be argued a couple of ways. Is it better to stick to your institution’s core values and strengths, or to push […]
Katori Hall’s tale of manhood and fatherhood in Memphis, Tennessee, The Hot Wing King shows why the kitchen really is the heart of the home. The Hot Wing King Is it actually compulsory for every work at the National Theatre to be three hours long (give or take)? At two hours and forty-five minutes, The […]
John Steinbeck’s epic Dust Bowl novel The Grapes of Wrath gets a solid National Theatre treatment with a US theatrical pedigree. A critical story for us to reflect on as we respond to increased economic and climate migration. The Grapes of Wrath Firstly I would like to implore you, if you have never read The […]
An exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery allows a showcase of Shonibare’s distinctive style, if not any new artistic approaches. Yinka Shonibare CBE at the Serpentine Gallery It has really been a long time since I was at the Serpentine Gallery. So long, in fact, that it was part of my Covid Diaries series. And actually, […]
