Closing in February or March
Closing in February
*Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan. In every possible way this exhibition is a privilege: the first ever exhibition of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, curated moreover by a scholar, Luke Syson, able to appreciate (in the words of the concise and free hand guide) Leonardo's genius as “a painter-philosopher, convinced his art could not just mirror nature but reveal a higher reality of divine harmony and beauty.”
Mounted, uniquely, in collaboration with the Louvre in Paris (to where it will travel in 2012). The exhibition comprises more than 60 late 15th century paintings and drawings by Leonardo, with others by close collaborators, but it is the master's paintings that over arch and enthral: notably his early Portrait of a Musician (on loan from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan); The Lady with an Ermine (from the Czartoryski Foundation, Crakow); Belle Ferronière (from Musée du Louvre, Paris); the unfinished Saint Jerome (from the Vatican); and the still controversial Madonna Litta (from the State Hermitage, St Petersburg). In their context the recently discovered Salvator Mundi (Private Collection) is revealing, especially if you ignore the damaged head in favour of the sensitive hands.
The coup of the exhibition is the opportunity of dwelling on Leonardo's two versions of the the Virgin of the Rocks – the earlier from the Musée du Louvre and the later in The National Gallery's collection, recently restored with near-miraculous results. The drawings, many from the Royal Collection, offer another more gradual and delicate entry into Leonardo's mind, as does in a monumental way the Gallery's own sublime Burlington House Cartoon. Do not fail to find your way out of the Sainsbury Wing upstairs to the gallery displaying the Royal Academy's contemporary copy of Leonardo's now ghostly Last Supper (in Milan) which is also shown with some of his associated preparatory drawings.
See
if you can the excellent introductory film and certainly buy the
catalogue, fully illustrated and with comprehensive, informative
essays and captions. Which being said,
everything you have read or seen
about this stupendous exhibition falls far short of the experience of
actually visiting it.
Sponsored
by Credit Suisse.
National
Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN. Tel. +44 (0)20 7747 2885.
(Open daily; late Fri) www.nationalgallery.org.uk
9
November 2011 – 5 February 2012.
Taylor
Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011.
Major
international award for new talent in portrait photography worth
£12,000 to the winner. Sixty portraits have been selected for this
year's exhibition from more than 6,000 submissions by 2,506
photographers. The shortlisted artists are: Jasper Clarke, David
Knight, Dona Schwartz, Jooney Woodward, and Jill Wooster. In addition
ELLE
magazine
will commission a photographer from the exhibition for a feature
story.
Sponsored
by Taylor Wessing.
National
Portrait Gallery, St. Martin's Place, London WC2H 0HE. Tel. +44 (0)20
7306 0055. (Open daily; late Thur & Fri) www.npg.org.uk
10
November 2011 – 12 February 2012.
Beatriz
Milhazes: Screenprints 1996 – 2011.
Comprehensive
display of screen, and, woodblock prints by renowned Brazilian artist
Beatriz Milhazes. This is the first annual exhibition marking a new
partnership between the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Windsor
Gallery, Vero Beach, Florida, coinciding with Art Basel Miami
Beach.
Windsor
Gallery, 3125 Windsor Boulevard, Vero Beach, Florida. Visits by
appointment only Tel. +1 772 388 4071. (Open daily)
3
December 2011 – 29 February 2012.
The
Mystery of Appearance: British Painting 1955 – 1985.
Exhibition,
including important loans, of paintings and drawings by ten major
artists: Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Patrick
Caulfield, William Coldstream, Lucian Freud, Richard Hamilton, David
Hockney, Leon Kossoff and Euan Uglow, with the aim of illustrating
the extent and importance of their personal relationships. Curated by
Catherine Lampert and Tom Hunt.
Haunch
of Venison, 103 New Bond Street, London W1S 1ST. Tel. +44 (0)20 7495
5050. (Open Mon - Sat) 7
December 2011 – 18 February 2012.
Lygia
Pape: Magnetized Space.
Major
exhibition of work by leading Brazilian artist Lygia Pape (1927 –
2004).
Serpentine
Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA. Tel. +44 (0)20 7402 6075.
(Open daily) www.serpentinegallery.org
7
December 2011 – 19 February 2012.
Sean
Scully: Change and Horizontals. Exhibition
of drawings dating from 1974-75 – the Change
series
made in London and the Horizontals
in
New York. After
its London showing the exhibition travels to: Middlesborough
Institute of Modern Art, 2
March – 8 July 2012; Galleria Nazionale d'Arte,
Rome,
14 March – 9 June 2013; and The Drawing Center,
New
York, 26 September – 10 November 2013.
Timothy
Taylor Gallery, 15 Carlos Place, London W1K 2EX. Tel. +44 (0)20 7409
3344. (Open Mon - Sat) 13
January – 11 February.
The
Blk Art Group.
Formed
in the early 1980s by young black artists and known then as the
Pan-Afrikan Connection, it was established by Eddie Chambers,
Claudette Johnson, Keith Piper, Donald Rodney and Marlene Smith in
“angry and defiant” response to the posturings of an outspokenly
anti-immigrant government and fanatical far-right groups. As well as
showing key works by the artists, the exhibition will also reveal the
important role of regional galleries, including those in Sheffield,
in supporting and promoting black art in contrast to the then
reluctance of most public art institutions.
Museums
Sheffield: Graves Gallery, Surrey Street, Sheffield S1 1XZ. Tel. +44
(0)114 287 2600. (Open Wed – Sat) www.museums-sheffield.org.uk
27
August 2011 – 4 February 2012.
OMA/Progress.
Major
exhibition devoted to the work of one of the world's most influential
and innovative architectural practices, OMA, founded by Rem Koolhaas
in 1975, now with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing and Hong
Kong. This exhibition, which is guest curated by the Brussels-based
collective Rotor, coincides with the opening of OMA's first buildings
in the UK: a Maggie's Centre in Gartnaval, Glasgow, and, Rothschild's
Bank headquarters in the City of London.
Supported
by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and The Netherlands
Architecture Fund.
Barbican
Art Gallery, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Tel. +44 (0)845 120 7550.
(Open
late daily; except Wed) 6
October 2011 – 18 February 2012.
Miracles
and Charms. Two
exhibitions. Infinitas
Gracias: Mexican Miracle Paintings.
More
than one hundred examples of personal votive paintings on loan from
five Mexican collections. Felicity
Powell: Charmed Lives.
Some
400 hundred amulets selected by the artist from Henry Wellcome's
collection plus examples of her own work.
Wellcome
Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE. Tel. +44 (0)20 7611
2222. (Open daily; late Thurs)
www.welcome.ac.uk
6
October 2010
– 26 February 2012.
*Edward
Burra. Welcome
to the strange world of the highly
individual British artist Edward Burra (1905 – 1976): this is first
major show of his work for 25 years. Fascinated by low life, by the
macabre, by theatre, film, and their stars, he was a successful stage
designer for opera and ballet. He travelled widely overseas and in
his latter years throughout the British Isles all the while producing
large scale watercolours, so monumental in effect as to seem like oil
paintings. Claiming to paint entirely for himself, he rather
surprisingly perhaps lived all his life in the ancient and
picturesque town of Rye in Sussex. Including many loans from public
collections and others, rarely seen before, from private owners this
is a major exhibition of an important artist, still relatively little
known.
Pallant
House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1TJ.
Tel. +44 (0)1243 774557. (Open Tues - Sun; late Thurs)
www.pallant.org.uk
22
October 2011 - 19 February 2012.
Exhibition
tours to: Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, 3 March –
27 May 2012.
Lost
in Lace.
Nothing
if not “an ambitious exhibition featuring large-scale, theatrical
and visually stimulating work by international artists who have been
inspired by the language of lace.” This potentially very exciting
and innovative inaugural venture involves the Crafts Council through
its biennial Fifty:Fifty Programme, in this instance working in
partnership with the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery.
Supported
by Esmée
Fairburn Foundation.
Gas
Hall, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square,
Birmingham B3 3DH. Tel. +44 (0)121 235 2834 (Open daily)
www.bmag.org.uk
29
October 2011 – 19 February 2012.
Closing in March
The
Hermitage in the Prado. Exhibition
of no less than 120 works of fine and decorative art, ranging n date
from the 5th
century
BC to the 20th
century,
and comprising the most important group ever to be loaned from the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
Sponsored
by Fundación
BBVA.
Museo
Nacional del Prado, Paseo del Prado, 28014, Madrid, Spain. Tel. +34
91 330 28 00 (Open daily) www.museodelprado.es
8
November 2011 – 25 March 2012.
Royal
Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination. Exhibition
of medieval and Renaissance treasures – painted manuscripts,
including bibles, psalters, histories and scientific works assembled
by English kings and queens over seven centuries.
British
Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB. Tel. +44 (0)20 7412 7332.
(Open daily; late Tues) www.bl.uk
11 November 2011 – 13 March
2012.
Donald
Judd. Exhibition
of the minimalist furniture made by the famous and influential
American artist and designer Donald Judd (1928 – 1994), organized
in collaboration with the Donald Judd Foundation.
Galerie
Greta Meert, Rue de Canal 13, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium. Tel. +32 2 219
14 22. 19 November 2011 – 10 March
2012.
United
Enemies: The Problem of Sculpture in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s.
Exhibitions
of works by many artists all of whom were attempting to resolve both
real and apparent contradictions at a time when, “the very idea and
definition of sculpture” was being fiercely debated.
The
Henry Moore Institute, 74 The Headrow, Leeds LS1 3AH. Tel. +44 (0)113
246 7467. (Open daily; late Wed) 1
December 2011 – 11 March 2012.
The
Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini.
Major
international loan exhibition of paintings, sculpture, medals and
drawings documenting “the birth of portraiture in early modern
Europe.”
The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028.
Tel. +1 212 535 7710. (Open Tues - Sun; late Fri & Sat)
www.metmuseum.org
21
December 2011 – 18 March 2012.
Exorcising
the Fear. British
Sculpture from the 50s & 60s. At
the 1952 Venice Biennale the work of eight young British sculptors:
Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Geoffrey Clarke, Lynn
Chadwick, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull,
created a sensation. Their characteristic tortured figures provoked
an essay by the critic and art historian Herbert Read entitled
'Exorcising the Fear'. This loan exhibition shows examples of their
works and others by the immediately succeeding generation of
sculptors including Elisabeth Frink and Michael Ayrton.
Pangolin
London, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG. Tel. +44 (0)20 7520
1480. (Open Tues – Sat)
11
January – 3 March.
Zarina
Bhimji. Major
survey of work by British photographer, film-maker and installation
artist Zarina Bhimji (born Uganda 1963).
Whitechapel
Gallery, 77 - 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Tel. +44
(0)20 7522 7888. (Open Tues - Sun; late Thurs) whitechapelgallery.org
19
January – 9 March.
Dinner
for a Duke. Exhibition
of silver, porcelain and dining accessories dating from the 17th
to
the late 19th
centuries
plus revealing archive material from the collections of the Dukes of
Portland.
The
Harley Gallery, Welbeck, Worksop, Nottinghamshire S80 3LN. Tel. +44
(0)1909 501700. (Open Tues – Sun)
www.harleygallery.co.uk
21
April 2010 – March 2012.
The
Unilever Series: Tacita Dean. FILM. The
twelfth in an annual series of always interesting, generally
controversial commissions for Tate Modern's mighty Turbine Hall.
Tacita Dean has chosen to make an eleven-minute silent 35mm looped
film. It is projected onto a tall monolith sited at the end of the
Hall and serves “as a testament to the distinctive qualities of
this unique medium” for film is now threatened with extinction by
digital technologies.
Tate
Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Tel. +44 (0)20 7887 8888. (Open
daily; late Fri & Sat) www.tate.org.uk
11
October 2011 – 11 March 2012.
The
Scottish Colourist Series: F. C. B. Cadell.
Major
retrospective exhibition of work by Francis Campbell Cadell (1883 –
1937) comprising some 80 paintings, many little-known.
Sponsored
by Dickson Minto W. S.
Scottish
National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh. Tel. +44
(0)131 624 6200. (Open daily; late Thurs) 22
October 2011 – 18 March 2012.
*especially recommended
Please check opening times and days before travelling any distance.
www.artnewsletter.com
February/March
2012