I admit I hadn’t heard of Nicholaes Maes, reportedly Rembrandt’s favourite pupil, so I was very keen to discover his work at the National Gallery at the beginning of March 2020, just before lockdown. The mid-seventeenth century must have been an exciting time for the young Maes, who left his home town of…
Category: review
Titian: Love, Desire, Death extended at the National Gallery
When COVID-19 forced the doors of the National Gallery to shut on 18 March 2020, it meant that the long planned, eagerly anticipated, once in a lifetime exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death also had to close after being open for just three days. Universally acclaimed Titian: Love, Desire, Death brings together the artist’s epic series…
Culture in a time of coronavirus
2020 got off to a flying start, culture-wise, with the Royal Academy’s remarkable Picasso on Paper exhibition, and our quartet of reviewers were eagerly looking forward to a busy year of exhibitions, concerts and opera. On one trip to London, I managed to fit in not one but three exhibitions in a single day –…
Soprano Romaniw Celebrates Slavic Repertoire with ‘Arion’
Natalya Romaniw’s star has been shining bright on the operatic stage for the past five years as her creamy soprano voice continues to draw an ever increasing legion of fans. A Daily Telegraph critic suggested in February this year that Romaniw was the next Netrebko of her generation. At Opera Holland Park last season,…
“32 Masterpieces” – Jonathan Biss | Beethoven the Complete Piano Sonatas
For American pianist Jonathan Biss, Beethoven has been a near-constant companion for almost his entire life. He has been playing and writing about the 32 Piano Sonatas and has spent nearly ten years recording Beethoven’s sonatas. Now he is performing all the sonatas over a nine-month period, with concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall and in…
A kind of blue: Léon Spilliaert at the RA
Last year the disquieting images of Felix Vallotton filled the Sackler Gallderies of the Royal Academy of Arts (read ArtMuseLondon’s review here). This spring, another little-known artist, Belgian Léon Spilliaert is represented, in this the first major exhibition of his work in the UK. Like Vallotton world, Spilliaert’s is unsettling, but for different reasons. Plagued…
Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk at the V&A
Kimono: from Kyoto to Catwalk – a magnificent celebration of the timelessness, universality and enduring appeal of the kimono
Hockney at his most intimate and honest
David Hockney: Drawing from Life – a magnificent, intimate overview of Hockney’s oeuvre and imagination as a master draughtsman and also a meditation on friendship, change and the ageing process
French Impressions at the British Museum
The British Museum’s new French Impressions show was several floors up in room 90, around the back of the museum. I’ve become quite accustomed to coming here for the BM’s print shows, for, for one thing, the BM benefits from an impressive print archive – admired the world over. The last exhibition I attended here,…
A Remarkable Meditation on Masculinity at the Barbican
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography at the Barbican is an exploration of male identity from the 1960s to the present day! The subject is vast and quite complex, and being the Barbican, it’s a big show, taking up two levels of floor space and showcasing three hundred artworks from celebrity photographers such as Richard Avedon and…
