Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) A thought-provoking exhibition which offers a different view of Poussin’s early work in Rome and displays his paintings in a sympathetic and joyous environment. Guest review by Sarah Mulvey Detail from a Bacchanalian Revel Before a Term, ca.1632-33, London, National Gallery I am spellbound before Poussin’s painting of the Adoration of the Golden Calf in the…
Category: Exhibition review
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2020
Guest review by Sarah Mulvey Featured: Nijdeka Akunyili Crosby, Blend In-Stand Out, Mixed Media, 243 x 314cm From July this year social life for gallery-goers returned almost to normal as many museums and galleries opened their doors to visitors. So, we re-inhabited the streets and met friends indoors, our smart phones tracking our movements around…
Concrete jungle: ‘Among the Trees’, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
At a time when the outside world desperately needs to recognise the importance of the arts, it’s fitting to see an entire exhibition of art on a mission to engage directly with the outside world. ‘Among the Trees’ includes pieces from 37 artists (based worldwide), working in a range of media: as we wander through…
Over the Top with Everything They’d Got: British Baroque at Tate Britain
The new show at Tate Britain, British Baroque: Power and Illusion starts in another epoch when our relationship with Europe was a tad strained, let us say, and ends at the point when a German prince who spoke not a word of English was invited – if not begged – to take over the English throne. You’d almost think Tate Britain had timed this show deliberately.
In Search of Dora Maar
Model, Assia Granatouroff photographed by Dora Maar As I was about to enter the Tate Modern show on Dora Maar, a question wouldn’t go away. Would Maar’s best work turn out to be what she produced during her years with Picasso? The Barbican show I had attended on artistic couples, in January of this year,…
Bridget Riley retrospective mesmerises and excites at Hayward Gallery
I still remember the first time I saw Bridget Riley’s vivid, abstract paintings. It was at a provincial gallery, Wolverhampton or somewhere similar, in the mid-1970s. Coloured stripes and shapes shimmered and bounced, their contrasting yet consonant colours jostling and vibrating on the large canvasses. I was fascinated by the rhythm and energy of these…
‘Rembrandt’s Light’ lights up Dulwich
A new show has opened for autumn at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. It’s called Rembrandt’s Light. It’s intelligent, empathetic, surprising and at one point breathtaking, and I urge you all to go and see it as soon as possible. Dulwich, the UK’s earliest purpose-built public picture gallery (it was founded in 1811), was designed…
Olafur Eliasson’s Show: Pioneering and Powerful.
Beauty 1993 A trip to the Tate Modern almost always involves me taking a left at the Turbine Hall where I know I will end up in familiar art territory, one which preferably involves paint! Going right on the other hand, into the Blavatnik Building, constitutes more of an art departure for me: tech art…
Dulwich Printmaking Show Impresses
Dorrit Black, Music, 1927-28 I had never heard of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art until I set foot in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Founded by wood engraver, Iain Macnab in 1925, the Grosvenor School was different from other London-based art schools of the time. There were no exams, students enrolled on courses when they could,…
The Art of Recycling: THE ROYAL ACADEMY SUMMER EXHIBITION 2019
The RA Summer Exhibition, with its whiff of the London season, the cocktail party and the 19th-century Paris salon, is always a bit of an oddity, and all the better for it, IMHO.
ARTMUSELONDON 