Category: Exhibitions
Ashmolean Pre-Raphaelites at the Watts Gallery
May 9 2022
Video: Watts Gallery
There's a new exhibition at the Watts Gallery, 'Pre-Raphaelite Treasures: Drawings and Watercolours on loan from The Ashmolean'. In the video above, curator Emily Burns give us a guided tour. Show till 12th June. More here.
Louis Gauffier in Italy
April 10 2022
Picture: Musée Fabre à Montpellier
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée Fabre in Montpellier will be opening their latest exhibition next month. As the title suggests, Le voyage en Italie de Louis Gauffier will be following the journey Louis Gauffier (1762-1801) made to Italy from 1783 onwards. The show features landscapes, portraits, biblical and mythological subjects with loans from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Kenwood House in London, The National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Minneapolis Art Institute, Fine Art Museums in San Francisco and The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
The exhibition will run from 7th May 2022 until 4th September 2022.
Vanishing Point
April 10 2022
Picture: FT
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Financial Times have published an interesting article on Barbara Walker’s new exhibition Vanishing Point. The show is currently on at the Cristea Roberts Gallery in London until 23rd April 2022. As you can see, these graphite drawings (combined with blind embossing) hone in on black figures that feature within old master paintings.
To quote the artist:
I spend a lot of time in the National Gallery, and when I’m looking at those beautiful paintings, I’m looking for me — how we are represented, how we are viewed — and to understand our journey. Often the black figures are in the corner or with their backs turned to us. The viewer sometimes doesn’t see these individuals. But I’m making them high-definition and bringing them to the forefront: here, they are not just props.
...
I’m duplicating an Old Masters painting and I want people to see the original in my work. So the black figure is still in situ; I don’t completely wash away the white figures, as I’ve done previously, or rub them away or paint them out. I want the audience to see the dynamics.
The Uffizi Gallery sends Charles V to Teglio
April 10 2022
Picture: Uffizi Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Florence's Uffizi Gallery have sent their Titian and Workshop of Emperor Charles V the Palazzo Besta in Teglio, Northern Italy. The Emperor's likeness appears an historic fresco scheme already in the palace, hence the connection. The loan is part of the '100 works return home' project that sees the gallery's artworks spread across different parts of the country. It seems that the project will soon be televised in a special documentary with Rai.
Raphael Reframed
April 9 2022
Picture: @psframes
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Peter Schade, Head of Framing at The National Gallery in London, has shared this beautiful comparison on his Twitter account. Raphael's Saint Catherine has been housed in a new antique frame (right). This new setting has received its debut at the gallery's new Raphael exhibition (which opened the other day, as it happens).
Michelangelo Poletti Collection on Display in Bologna
April 9 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The collection of the entrepreneur Michelangelo Poletti has gone on display in a special exhibition at the Palazzo Fava in Bologna. The collection consists predominately of Emilian painters from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. A total of 84 works are on display including paintings by the likes of Lorenzo Pasinelli, Donato Creti, Graziani, Aureliano Milani, Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Lucia Casalini, The Master of the Baldraccani, Girolamo Genga and Garofalo.
The show will run until 24th July 2022.
Smell this Brueghel at the Prado
April 5 2022
Picture: Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Prado in Madrid is the latest museum to explore the subject of smell in paintings. In particular, the museum will be bringing to life Peter Brueghel the Elder's (in collaboration with Rubens) Sense of Smell (pictured) in a small exhibition entitled The Essence of a Painting. An Olfactory Exhibition.
According to the website:
On display until 3 July in Room 83 of the Villanueva Building, The Sense of Smell, a painting by Jan Brueghel and Rubens, is the focus of The Essence of a Painting. An Olfactory Exhibition, curated by Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish Painting and the Northern Schools at the Museo Nacional del Prado, and Gregorio Sola, Senior Perfumer at Puig and an academician of the Perfume Academy, who has created ten fragrances associated with elements in the painting.
Brueghel’s work, which evokes the garden of rare trees and plants belonging to Isabel Clara Eugenia and her husband in early 17th-century Brussels, depicts more than 80 species of plants and flowers, as well as various animals associated with the sense of smell, such as the scent hound and civet, and a range of objects relating to the world of perfume, including scented gloves, vessels holding fragrant substances, a perfume burner warmed in a sumptuous brazier, and vessels for distilling essences.
The show will run until 3rd July 2022.
Religious Artworks Restored at the Museo de la Semana Santa de Cuenca
April 1 2022
Picture: Museo de la Semana Santa de Cuenca
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museo de la Semana Santa de Cuenca (The Museum of Holy Week) in Spain have just opened an exhibition dedicated to a set of restored religious works of art. Jewels of the Passion features five works from various parishes that have been brought back to life through a vast conservation project.
Click here for an online catalogue (in Spanish) of the exhibition, which features quite a few interesting photos during the various stages of conservation.
The show will run from 31st March 2022 until 22nd May 2022.
I think this 'before and after' of a set of three anonymous sixteenth-century panels is rather striking! If only the revealed picture was of better quality:
Magic of the Real: Bernardo Bellotto at the Saxon court
March 30 2022
Picture: gemaeldegalerie.skd.museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden will be opening an exhibition on Bellotto later in May. Magic of the Real: Bernardo Bellotto at the Saxon court will see the reunion of several large scale works by the painter made possible by several important international loans.
The show will run in Dresden from 21st May 2022 until 28th August 2022. It will then head across to the Royal Castle in Warsaw later in September.
Raphael at the National Gallery
March 30 2022
Video: The National Gallery, London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London will be opening their long-awaited Raphael exhibition next week. Here's a short trailer which provides an idea of which masterpieces visitors will encounter.
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Speaking as someone who is rather sensitive to music, I'm surprised why no exquisite and dramatic sixteenth-century Italian polyphony was employed within this video (!)
'Maddalena-il mistero e l'immagine' in Forlì
March 29 2022
Picture: teatrionline.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Visitors to Forlì, an Italian town close to Ravenna, will have the opportunity to visit a brand-new exhibition on representations of Saint Mary Magdalene. The show entitled Maddalena-il mistero e l'immagine, organised by the Musei di San Domenico, contains no fewer than 200 works featuring the saint. This includes works by the likes of Masaccio, Crivelli, Van der Weyden, Signorelli, Bellini, Perugino, Barocci, Savoldo, Mazzoni, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Guercino, Vouet, Guido Reni, Lanfranco, Mengs, Canova, Hayez, Delacroix, Böcklin, Previati, Chagall and others.
The exhibition will run from 27th March 2022 until 10th July 2022.
Iron Men at the KHM
March 24 2022
Video: Kunsthistoriches Museum Wien
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I was given the opportunity to flick through an advanced copy of the Kunsthistoriches Musuem's upcoming exhibition catalogue a few days ago. Iron Men: Fashion in Steel is a wonderful excuse to examine historic arms and armour in the context of civilian fashions from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. These profusely decorated and embossed harnesses really did provide Emperors, princes and courtiers with sculpture that they could wear.
The show also contains an excellent selection of Old Masters which feature this highly-misunderstood art form (we have to blame Hollywood for that).
The show will run from 29th March 2022 until 26th June 2022.
Printmaking in Prague at The British Museum
March 15 2022
Picture: The British Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The British Museum will be opening an exhibition of prints in a few day's time. Printmaking in Prague: Art from the court of Rudolf II will be opening on 17th March 2022 in Room 90 and will run until 28th August 2022.
According to the museum's website:
In this exhibition, learn more about printmaking in Rudolf's court in Prague during the highpoint of innovative and ambitious prints made from around 1580 until the early years of the 17th century.
After moving his court to the Bohemian capital of Prague, Rudolf transformed the city into a vibrant centre of art and science. He acquired objects from all over Europe and beyond, and amassed one of the largest and most diverse collections of his time. His collection of thousands of paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and other objects of curiosity and wonder led him to be described as the greatest art patron in the world by biographer Karel van Mander in 1604.
Rudolf also sought out leading artists for his court, including painters and sculptors who specialised in creating elegant, elongated forms. Aegidius II Sadeler was appointed as the imperial engraver to Rudolf's court, and together with Hendrick Goltzius and Jan Muller, he reproduced these artworks as prints – a move that disseminated Rudolf's courtly style to a much broader audience.
Boldini: Les plaisirs et les jours
March 9 2022
Picture: petitpalais.paris.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Petit Palais in Paris are set to open what looks to be a sumptuous visual display of late nineteenth-century paintings at the end of this month. Boldini Les Plaisirs et les Jours is scheduled to run from 29th March 2022 until 24th July 2022.
According to the gallery's blurb:
This first retrospective is an opportunity for visitors to discover or to renew acquaintance with Giovanni Boldini, a virtuoso painter and figure on the social, artistic and literary scene of Belle Époque Paris.
Born in Ferrara, Italy in 1842, Boldini spent most of his career in Paris. He was a close friend of Degas and also of Proust, and moved in aristocratic and upper middle-class circles. During his lifetime, he enjoyed considerable success, becoming the favourite portraitist of a rich, international clientele. In Paris, the fashion capital of the world, he had no equal when it came to portraying princesses and rich heiresses – always wearing the most beautiful dresses. His inimitable style, which was modern but at odds with the avant-garde, has made his works captivating and moving testimonies of that lost era in Paris.
The Art of Experiment: Parmigianino at The Courtauld
March 8 2022
Picture: Courtauld Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Courtauld Gallery in London opened their latest drawings exhibition a few days ago. The Art of Experiment: Parmigianino at The Courtauld will run in The Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery (included within general admission) until 5th June 2022.
According to the gallery's website:
The Renaissance artist Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, better known as Parmigianino (1503-1540), was celebrated for his graceful compositions and praised as the heir to Raphael (1483 – 1520). Parmigianino drew relentlessly during his short life: more than a thousand of his drawings have survived. They show the virtuoso artist, endlessly sketching out new ideas on paper. As well as drawing and painting, Parmigianino also experimented with printmaking, and is considered to have been the first to try the new medium of etching in Italy as well as pioneering the chiaroscuro woodcut technique.
This display will present an important group of twenty-two works by Parmigianino from The Courtauld’s collection. They include a sketch for the artist’s most ambitious painting, the Madonna of the Long Neck. Alongside it, there will be studies for his celebrated frescoes of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma, Italy – one of Parmigianino’s most significant commissions. A collaborative project which involved former and current research students at The Courtauld, the display and its accompanying catalogue will shed light on an artist who approached every technique with unprecedented freedom and produced innovative works which were studied and admired by artists and collectors in his lifetime and for centuries thereafter.
Queen Victoria's Japanese Screens Rediscovered in the Royal Collection
March 8 2022
Picture: The Evening Standard
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Evening Standard have shared news that several Japanese painted screens have been rediscovered in The Royal Collection. These large screens, which were part of a diplomatic gift received in 1860, will be put on display for the first time later in April.
According to the article:
Eight pairs of screen paintings were sent by the Japanese shogun Tokugawa Iemochi shortly after Japan’s reopening to the West, following more than two centuries of deliberate isolation.
The opulent gift to Victoria marked a landmark treaty that reopened seven Japanese ports and cities to British trade and allowed a British diplomat to reside in Japan for the first time.
But the screens were wrongly catalogued as Japanese works by an unidentified artist when they arrived, and their links to Shogun Iemochi and their historical significance were lost.
It was also found that the pieces – featuring two to three layers of paper rather than the usual six to nine – were hastily produced, probably due to a huge fire in Edo Castle in Tokyo which would have destroyed the original versions before they could be sent to Victoria.
The RCT's exhibition Japan: Courts and Culture will open at the Queen's Gallery on 8th April 2022 and run until 12th March 2023.
Fashioning Masculinities at the V&A
March 7 2022
Picture: V&A
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Victoria & Albert Museum's (V&A) latest fashion exhibition Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear is set to open next week. According to the various press images released on their website, it seems that the show will feature several historic paintings which will help to bring to life this intriguing topic.
According to the museum's website:
Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear is the first major V&A exhibition to celebrate the power, artistry and diversity of masculine attire and appearance. Contemporary looks by legendary designers and rising stars will be displayed alongside historical treasures from the V&A's collections and landmark loans: classical sculptures, Renaissance paintings, iconic photographs, and powerful film and performance.
The exhibition showcases the variety of possible masculinities across the centuries from the Renaissance to the global contemporary: from looks by Gucci, Harris Reed, Grace Wales Bonner and Raf Simons, to paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola and Joshua Reynolds, contemporary artworks by David Hockney and Omar Victor Diop, to an extract from an all-male dance performance by Matthew Bourne's New Adventures.
The exhibition will run from 19th March 2022 until 6th November 2022 and its accompanying catalogue is already available for order on the museum's website.
Annibale Carracci. The Herrera Chapel
March 4 2022
Video: Museo Nacional del Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Prado in Madrid will be opening their latest exhibition in a few days' time. The delayed Annibale Carracci The frescoes from the Herrera Chapel will be opening on the 8th March 2022 and run until 12th June 2022.
This is not Katherine Parr (ctd.)
March 4 2022
Picture: ITV
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
ITV have shared news that Hever Castle in Kent have discovered that their portrait of Katherine Parr depicts the wrong Katherine. Research has uncovered that it actually depicts King Henry VIII's first wife Katherine of Aragon and corresponds to a reidentified portrait in the NPG. Regular readers of AHN might remember that Bendor made this point no less than ten years ago on this very blog.
But of course, this story is really about promoting Hever Castle's upcoming exhibition Becoming Anne: Connections, Culture, Court which opens today and will run until November 2022.
Forbidden Fruit: Female Still Life at Colnaghi
March 1 2022
Picture: Colnaghi
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The dealers Colnaghi will be opening their latest old masters selling exhibition in April. This year's theme looks to be a very interesting one indeed, as it is dedicated to still lifes by female artists.
According to the company's press release:
COLNAGHI London presents a tantalising new exhibition devoted to female still life, the highlight of which is a spatially complex painting by the mannerist artist, Fede Galizia (pictured). An important rediscovery by Colnaghi, the work contributes to the reconstruction of Galizia’s corpus in her enigmatic final years. Forbidden Fruit: Female Still Life will include other rare works by Giovanna Garzoni, painter to the Medicis and one of the first women to practice the art of still life, as well as the only known painting by Caterina Angela Pierozzi, protégée of Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere. The exhibition will also feature the last painting by the hand of acclaimed Dutch botanical artist, Rachel Ruysch.
Open at Colnaghi London from April 27 through June 24, 2022, Forbidden Fruit builds upon Colnaghi's mission to spearhead new trends in art collecting, bringing the finest works in often overlooked categories to a new audience. This presentation includes work from the Renaissance to Baroque periods by: Giovanna Garzoni, Fede Galizia, Judith Leyster, Clara Peeters, Caterina Angela Pierozzi, Elisabetta Marchioni, Rachel Ruysch and others.
