ArtMuseLondon is a tender one year old. We launched this site in 2017 as a place where we could write what we wanted to about the art and music we’re enjoying in London. Freed from an overseeing editor or a publication’s “house style”, we aim to write informed, intelligent and above all honest reviews.

Last year started well, with a major retrospective of British artist and national treasure David Hockney. A vast improvement on the sprawling show at the RA in 2012, this well-conceived exhibition offered a clear and concise overview of Hockney’s life and work, and it was good to see some of his best-known pictures alongside more intimate and small-scale drawings and prints.

Other highlights of 2017 included Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932 at the RA, America After the Fall (also at the RA), Howard Hodgkin Portraits (NPG), Giacometti (Tate Modern), Grayson Perry (Serpentine Gallery), the newly refurbished home of J M W Turner in Twickenham, Rachel Whiteread (Tate Modern), Soutine (Courtauld Gallery), Cezanne Portraits (NPG) and Modigliani (continues at Tate Modern). We saw two brand new operas (A Winter’s Tale and Marnie at ENO) and a Prom in a disused carpark in Peckham. There were a few “misses” last year – a muddled and rather egocentric concert by young Hong Kongese musicians at Wilton’s Music Hall and the misnamed Impressionists in London at Tate Britain, an exhibition which contained only a handful of true impressionist paintings and a lot of tedious late-nineteenth century French art.

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). 1972. Lewis Collection

Boris Mikailovich Kustodiev, Bolshevik, 1920 Oil on canvas, 101 x 140.5 cm, State Tretyakov Gallery. Photo (c) State Tretyakov Gallery

Marc Chagall, Promenade, 1917-18, Oil on canvas, 175.2 x 168.4 cm, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg Photo (c) 2016, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (c) DACS 2016

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930
Oil on beaver board, 78 x 65 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, friends of American Art Collection, 1930.934

Alberto Giacometti Man Pointing 1947 Tate, Purchased 1949 © Alberto Giacometti Estate, ACS/DACS, 2017

Alberto Giacometti Woman with her Throat Cut 1932 National Galleries of Scotland © Alberto Giacometti Estate, ACS/DACS, 2017

Soutine, Chaim The Little Pastry Cook from Cagnes; Le patissier de Cagnes. c.1922-1923 Christie’s Images, London/Scala, Florence

London, UK. 24.10.2017. English National Opera presents Handel’s “Rodelinda” at the London Coliseum. This production is directed by Richard Jones with Donna Stirrup as revival director, set design by Jeremy Herbert and lighting design by Mimi Jordan Sherin. The cast is: Rebecca Evans (Rodelinda), Tim Mead (Bertarido), Juan Sancho (Grimoaldo), Susan Bickley (Eduige), Neal Davies (Garibaldo), Christopher Lowrey (Unulfo), Matt Casey (Flavio). Photograph © Jane Hobson.

Amedeo Modigliani, Reclining Nude 1919, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Amedeo Modigliani, Boy in Short Pants, c.1918, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Leland Fikes Foundation, Inc. 1977

There are riches in store for art lovers in 2018, beginning this month at the RA with a major exhibition focusing on Charles I as a subject for artists and also a significant collector. We’re also looking forward to All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and painting from life at Tate Britian, Ocean Liners at the V&A, Tacita Dean (NPG, NG and RA), Frida Kahlo’s Wardrobe (V&A), and Klimt/Schiele Drawings at the RA in the autumn. We will not be covering everything – first, because there are only two of us, and secondly, because we believe a degree of discernment and quality should rule over quantity of exhibitions covered. In addition to exhibition reviews, we will also cover some opera and concerts in London, as well as CD reviews. We hope you will continue to enjoy reading ArtMuseLondon.

Nick and Fran