New Year’s Eve

This Week in London – New Year’s Eve sold out; New Year’s Day Parade; and, National Gallery buys Corot work…

by exploringlondon

• All 100,000 tickets for London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks are now booked, the Greater London Authority announced this week. They’ve advised those without a ticket to avoid the area around Embankment and South Bank on the night, saying that the best alternative view of the fireworks will be live on BBC One. Meanwhile, don’t forget the New Year’s Day Parade which will kick off in Piccadilly (near junction with Berkeley Street) from noon on New Year’s Day. The parade – which takes in Lower Regent Street, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall before finishing at 3.30pm at Parliament Square in Westminster – will feature thousands of performers. Grandstand tickets are available. For more, see www.londonparade.co.uk.

• The National Gallery has acquired French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s work, The Four Times of Day, it was announced this month. The 1858 work, acquired with the aid of the Art Fund, has something of a star-studded pedigree – it was bought by Frederic, Lord Leighton, in 1865, and the four large panels were displayed at his London home until his death. In the same family collection for more than a century after that, they have been on loan to the National Gallery since 1997. They complement 21 other paintings by Corot in the gallery’s collection. The Four Times of Day can be seen in Room 41. Entry is free. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

Exploring London is taking a break over Christmas, so this will be the last This Week in London update until mid-January. But we’ll still be posting some of our other usual updates including our most popular posts for 2014 round-up!

This Week in London – Italian Cast Court reopens at V&A; Christmas Past at the Geffrye; and, last call for NYE celebrations…

by exploringlondon

Weston-Cast-Court• The V&A’s spectacular Italian Cast Court will reopen on Saturday after the completion of the first phase in the museum’s programme of renovating its day-lit courts. The Italian court, which has been renamed the Weston Cast Court, features more than 60  19th century reproductions of Italian Renaissance monuments including a five metre high cast of Michelangelo’s David, a cast of the massive Gates of Paradise from Florence Cathedral, a plaster cast of a pulpit from Pisa Cathedral and a monumental cast of Jacopo della Quercia’s great arch from the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. The displays have been reconfigured with a new interpretation following extensive examination and preservation of the collection during the gallery’s renovation. The two cast courts at the South Kensington-based museum first opened in 1873. Entry is free. For more, see www.vam.ac.uk. PICTURE: © Victoria and Albert Museum.

• The annual ‘Christmas Past’ exhibition – in which 11 period rooms have been decorated in period style for the Christmas season – opened at the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch this week. Along with the chance to see how Christmas looked in bygone years, there’s a series of Christmas-themed events including “A Georgian Christmas” on 4th December, “festive food” in the cafe and Christmas gifts to stuff your stocking with.  Entry to the museum is free. Christmas Past runs until 4th January. For more, see www.geffrye-museum.org.uk.

• We’ve mentioned it already but London’s public New Year’s Eve celebration – featuring its spectacular fireworks and lighting display – will this year be a ticketed event and the final tickets will be released during the first couple of weeks in December. A batch of new tickets will be released at noon each day from the 1st to 15th December. Those wishing to snag a ticket – and you can book up to four with a £10 administration fee payable for each – need to head to www.london.gov.uk/nye. Meanwhile the city is gearing up for Christmas and, in the wake of the Christmas lights getting turned on all across the metropolis, comes the annual lighting of the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square. The tree – a gift from the citizens of Oslo as a token of London’s support for them during World War II – takes place next Thursday (4th December) at 6pm (more on further Christmas events next week).

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Apologies that the headline originally had a mis-spelling of the Geffrye Museum (auto-correct run amok!)

Happy New Year!

by exploringlondon

 

Wishing all Exploring London’s readers a very happy start to 2012!

PICTURE: London fireworks, 2011 © Sung Kik Kim (www.istockphoto.com)

Around London – New Year’s Eve fireworks; a Resurrectionist diary; and, Russian architecture at the Royal Academy…

by exploringlondon

• Plans for this year’s New Year’s Eve fireworks – marking the beginning of the year in which London hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games – have been announced by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The EDF London Eye on South Bank will once again form the focus of the fireworks display and those wishing to attend have been warned to take their places early with some areas filling up by 9pm or 10pm. Parents with young children are advised to consider attending fireworks displays closer to home (for more, see www.london.gov.uk/newyearseve). The display will be followed by a parade on New Year’s Day (for more, see www.londonparade.co.uk). Meanwhile, the annual Christmas Tree lighting ceremony will take place next Thursday. The tree is a gift from the people of Oslo, the Norwegian capital, given annually for more than 60 years in recognition of Britain’s support during World War II.

• On Now – The Diary of a Resurrectionist. This month marks the 200th anniversary of an intriguing diary which offers insights into the work of a group of grave robbers and to mark the moment, the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England is hosting an exhibition featuring extracts from the diary and charting the rise and fall of grave robbing. The exhibition, which is being hosted in the Library Reading Room, runs until 22nd December. There is a special lecture by Kirsty Chilton at the museum from 7pm tonight (24th November, entry fee applies). For more, see www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/exhibitions/index.html.

• On Now – Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. The Royal Academy of Arts is hosting this exhibition which looks at the avant-garde architecture which appeared in Russia from 1922 to 1935, and its design origins in the earlier flowering of Constructivisit art which emerged around 1915. Large scale photographs, taken by Richard Pare, are juxtaposed with relevant Constructivisit drawings and paintings as well as vintage photographs. A reconstruction of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (known as Tatlin’s Tower) has been built in the Annenberg Courtyard to coincide with the exhibition. Runs until 22nd January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.