modernism
Jean Arp: Poetry of Forms review - subversive pioneer honoured in HollandThursday, 01 June 2017This summer the wonderful Kröller-Möller museum in Otterlo hosts the first major Dutch retrospective of the works of Hans (Jean) Arp since 1960 – an exhibition that will travel in a marginally smaller version to Margate’s Turner Contemporary later... Read more... |
Vanessa Bell, Dulwich Picture GalleryTuesday, 28 February 2017The Other Room, dating from the late 1930s, is the largest painting in Dulwich Picture Gallery's landmark retrospective, the first show to be dedicated to Vanessa Bell since a posthumous Arts Council show in 1964. In it, three women inhabit a space... Read more... |
War in the Sunshine, Estorick CollectionTuesday, 17 January 2017North London’s much loved Estorick Collection is reopening its doors after a five-month spruce up. The Georgian listed building that houses a 120-piece collection of modern Italian art now boasts a new glass conservatory, opened out entrance hall... Read more... |
Flaming June, Leighton House MuseumThursday, 24 November 2016The chances are, you’ve only ever seen Flaming June in reproduction: since 1963 it has resided in the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, an out-of-the-way location that reflects the universal disdain for Victorian art in the post-war period.... Read more... |
The Radical Eye, Tate ModernThursday, 10 November 2016“For me photography is a journey of discovery”, says Elton John. “I buy what I like and if it's not fashionable I don’t care. The more you collect, the more sophisticated your eye becomes.” He realised he had become a serious collector when, in 1993... Read more... |
Paul Nash, Tate BritainMonday, 31 October 2016In Monster Field, 1938, fallen trees appear like the fossilised remains of giant creatures from prehistory. With great horse-like heads, and branches like a tangle of tentacles and legs, Paul Nash’s series of paintings and photographs serve as... Read more... |
Picasso Portraits, National Portrait GalleryThursday, 06 October 2016There’s something familiar about those dark, piercing eyes, but the impenetrable, mask-like countenance of Picasso’s Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906, is ultimately unknowable. In fact, the painting serves as something of a rebuke: we think we know... Read more... |
Helaine Blumenfeld: 'Beauty has become synonymous with something banal'Tuesday, 27 September 2016Helaine Blumenfeld was living in Paris in the 1960s when she received an invitation from the Russian-born sculptor Ossip Zadkine to attend one of his salons. Zadkine had emigrated to Paris at the beginning of the century, evolving a style influenced... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bilbao: The School of Paris at the Guggenheim MuseumSunday, 29 May 2016Painted during his first trip to Paris in 1900, Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette is an outsider’s view of an exotic and intimidating new world. Men and women are seen as if through some strange distorting lens, their blurred, mask-like faces... Read more... |
Alberto Giacometti, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, NorwichSaturday, 30 April 2016An exceptionally wide-ranging exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings and lithographs by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) commemorates the 50th anniversary of his death. Amidst the flurry of Giacometti exhibitions – the National Portrait Gallery... Read more... |
John Piper, Pallant House Gallery, ChichesterThursday, 28 April 2016You wouldn't judge a painting on how it would look in your own home, but textiles are different: in fact it is exactly this assessment that counts. A length of fabric laid flat is a half-formed thing: it needs to be cut, stitched and draped before... Read more... |
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) - 'Music for anyone and everyone'Tuesday, 15 March 2016With the death of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies from leukaemia at the age of 81, the UK has lost the most prolific composer of his generation, as well as one of the most passionate advocates for art music.Maxwell Davies, known universally as Max, wrote... Read more... |