Galleries

This Week in London – Lumiere London, and London’s future imagined…

by exploringlondon

• The annual festival of illumination known as Lumiere London returns to the capital for a second time from tonight with more than 50 installations lighting up streets, buildings and public spaces. London’s largest night-time festival, installations in this year’s free event – commissioned by the Mayor of London and produced by arts charity Artichoke – are clustered around six areas: King’s Cross, Fitzrovia, the West End, Mayfair, Westminster and Victoria, and South Bank and Waterloo. The installations include Lampounette – located in King’s Cross, it features giant office desk lamps, Entre les rangs – a field of thousands of flower-like reflectors in Lewis Cubitt Park, Nightlife – a luminous secret garden in Leicester Square which plays with the relationship between wild spaces and urban city life and spills out to include illuminated flamingoes flying over Chinatown, and Northern Lights – a recreation of the aurora borealis in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair. The facade of Westminster Abbey is also among the buildings to be lit up with artist Patrice Warrener commissioned to illuminate the Abbey’s West Towers and Great North Door with his work, The Light of the Spirit. There’s a free app to download and a map can be purchased online for download. For more, include a complete programme, head to www.visitlondon.com/lumiere. PICTURE: Westminster Abbey during Lumiere London last year (Paula Funnell/licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

• London’s future built form is up for discussion at a new exhibition opening at the Museum of London tomorrow. London Visions: Hypothetical scenarios of a future presents hypothetical concepts created by leading artists, architects and designers using video installations, architectural narratives and video games. Among the key works on display are: Flooded London – a series of images created by Squint/Opera depicting imaginary scenes of London in 2090 when rising seas have flooded the city; In the Robot Skies: A Drone Love Story – the world’s first narrative shot entirely by autonomous drones operating on autopilot, the film – directed by speculative architect Liam Young and written by Tim Maughan – looks at the possible future use of drones within London council estates; and, Endless Vertical City – a competition-winning design by SURE Architecture which envisions a skyscraper that could house the whole of London. The free display is on show until 15th April as part of City Now City Future, the year-long season of events exploring urban evolution in London and around the world. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/citynowcityfuture.

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A Moment in London’s History – The great flood of 1928…

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It was 90 years ago this month – 6th and 7th January, 1928 – that the River Thames flooded disastrously in what was the last major flood in central London.

Fourteen people are reported to have died and some 4,000 made homeless when the river burst its banks and spilled over the top of the Thames Embankment. Part of the Chelsea Embankment collapsed.

The flood – which was blamed on a range of factors including a sudden thaw upstream, heavy rain, a tidal surge and the impact of dredging – peaked at about 1.30am on 7th January at a height of 18 foot, three inches (5.56 metres) above ordnance datum.

The city saw extensive flooding on the City of London itself as well as in Southwark and as far upriver as Putney and Hammersmith and downriver in Greenwich and Woolwich as well as beyond.

Most of the deaths occurred when the embankment gave way near Lambeth Bridge and a wall of water swept through the slums on the Westminster side of the bridge with 10 people losing their lives.

Among the buildings flooded were the Tate Gallery at Millbank – where many works including some by JMW Turner were damaged, parts of the Houses of Parliament including Westminster Hall and the House of Commons, numerous Underground stations and Blackwall and Rotherhithe tunnels. The moat of the Tower of London, dry for 80 years, was filled.

While the flood waters receded by the end of the day, the damage took years to repair with many buildings in Millbank, the worst affected area, demolished. Embankments were raised in the wake of the flooding but it wasn’t until after the North Sea flood of 1953 that authorities took action to build the Thames Barrier (it was eventually completed in 1982).

Above – A marker recording the height of the flood outside Trinity Hospital in Greenwich (the plaque below right records the details).

This Week in London – China and South Asia gallery reopens at British Museum; Historic US letters on show at Heritage Gallery; and, two new works for Tate’s Tanks…

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• The renovated Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia has reopened at the British Museum, bringing the displays for China and South Asia up-to-date. The gallery presents the histories of China from 5000BC to the present with objects on show including Ming dynasty dragon tiles and the earliest scroll to reach Britain (it arrived at the end of the 18th century). The South Asia exhibition, meanwhile, includes a new display covering the Mughal period, the Rajput rulers, India under British rule and the region since independence in 1947. Featured objects include the stone sculptures from the Buddhist shrine at Amaravati and newly acquired works of art including a 6th century sculpture of Lakshmi from Kashmir. Entry to the gallery in Room 33 is free. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org. PICTURE: Courtesy of British Museum.

• Historic letters sent between the City of London and the United States of America during the American War of Independence have gone on show at the City of London’s Heritage Gallery within the Guildhall Art Gallery. The letters include some authored by notable Americans John Hancock and Isaac Roosevelt, written at a time when, in defiance of the British Government, the City championed the cause of the colonists. Also on show are documents relating to the life and work of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson – the first women to qualify as a surgeon and physician in Britain and to serve as a magistrate and mayor – and, in a nod to the approaching centenary of the Royal Air Force, a display on the career of World War II pilot Cy Grant. The documents, which are all drawn from the collection of the London Metropolitan Archives, can be seen until 18th April. For more, follow this link.

• Two major new works have been opened in the Tanks at the Tate Modern. Emeka Ogboh’s, The Way Earthly Things Are Going 2017 – on display for the first time in the UK after debuting in Athens – fills the subterranean East Tank in the Blavatnik Building while Indian artist Amar Kanwar’s The Lightning Testimonies 2007 can be seen in the South Tank. Both works are on display until 4th February. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Dulwich’s ‘Moomin’ weekend; new Dutch and Fleming paintings at The National Gallery; and ‘Christmas Past’ at the Geffrye…

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• Dulwich Picture Gallery is hosting a ‘Moomin Winter Weekend’ in a celebration of its current exhibition featuring the works of Tove Jansson. The programme, which kicks of Friday night with a late opening, features storytellers and performers reading the Moomin stories, puppets from the Polka Theatre’s 2014 production Moominsummer Madness, a live performance by the Freshwater Theatre Company exploring the life and work of Jansson, and Moomin-inspired food and drink. Admission charges apply. For more information, see www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

• Four 17th and early 18th century Dutch and Flemish paintings have gone on show at The National Gallery, thanks to a bequest from the late Dutch-born collector Willem Baron van Dedem. The works include David Teniers the Younger’s Christ crowned with Thorns  (1641), Jan van Kessel the Elder’s Butterflies, Moths and Insects with Sprays of Common Hawthorn and Forget-Me-Not, and Butterflies and Moths and Insects with Sprays of Creeping Thistle and Borage (both 1654, they represent the first of van Kessel the Elder’s works in the gallery’s collection), along with Still Life with a Bowl of Strawberries, a Spray of Gooseberries, Asparagus and a Plum by Adriaen Coorte (1703). They have gone on show in Room 26. For more on the gallery, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

• On Now – Christmas Past at the Geffrye Museum. The Shoreditch-based ‘Museum of the Home’ is once again running its annual look at how Christmas has been celebrated in English homes over the past 400 years. There’s also a range of accompanying events including fairs, late nights, carol concerts, and decoration and greenery workshops as well as seasonal food and drink. Runs until 7th January. Meanwhile, on 6th and 7th January, the museum will host a special weekend closing party as the doors shut for two years while it undergoes a transformational redevelopment. For more, see www.geffrye-museum.org.uk.

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This Week in London – The Royal Collection and Charles II; convicts lives explored; and, ‘Gold’ at the National Gallery…

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• A new exhibition celebrating the role of the court of King Charles II in promoting the arts in England has opened at The Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace. Charles II: Art and Power highlights the key role Charles II played in developing the Royal Collection following the Restoration in 1660 as a means of decorating royal apartments and, perhaps more importantly, of glorifying the restored monarchy and helping it to take its place back on the European stage. The display features works ranging from John Michael Wright’s monumental portrait of the king in coronation robes (pictured) to Henry Greenway’s silver-gilt dish that adorned the high altar of Westminster Abbey and Wenceslaus Hollar’s The Coronation of King Charles the II in Westminster Abby the 23 of April 1661. Other paintings on show include Titian’s Madonna and Child in a Landscape with Tobias and the Angel (c1535-40), Antonio Verrio’s The Sea Triumph of Charles II (c1674), Pieter Brugel the Elder’s The Massacre of the Innocents (c1565-67), and Sir Peter Lely’s Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (c 1665) as well as tapestries and silver-gilt furnishings. The exhibition, which will be accompanied by a major exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts in January and a series of documentaries on various BBC channels under the banner of a BBC Royal Collection Season, runs until 13th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalcollection.org.uk. PICTURE: John Michael Wright, Charles II, c.1676 Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.

• The lives of convicts in 18th and 19th century London are the subject of a new exhibition opening at the London Metropolitan Archives. Criminal Lives, 1780-1925: Punishing Old Bailey Convicts includes original documents from the Old Bailey archives and items such as a policeman’s truncheon, a reproduction Millbank Prison uniform and convicts’ photographs drawn from collections in Britain and Australia to provide insights into the lives of offenders, from the time of the Gordan Riots in 1760 to the early 20th century. Among those whose lives are featured are prostitute and pickpocket Charlotte Walker, notorious receiver of stolen goods Ikey Solomons and serial thief Thomas Limpus. The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council Digital Panopticon Project, opens on Monday and runs until 16th May. Admission is free. There is an accompanying programme of events. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma.

• The National Gallery is running a season of events aimed at exploring the theme of ‘gold’ in its collection in the run-up to Christmas. Running until 1st January, the programme includes free lunchtime talks, a life drawing session this Friday, a workshop on the traditional intaglio printmaking technique of drypoint, drawing sessions and a series of films. For the full season of events, check out www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/christmas-at-the-gallery/christmas-events.

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This Week in London – ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’…

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Christmas is looming and that means Christmas themed events are kicking off all over the city. Here’s a sample of what’s happening:

• The world famous Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree will be lit next Thursday – 7th December – in an event that kicks off at 6pm. The 25 metre high tree is an annual gift from the people of Norway as a thank you for Britain’s support during World War II. Christmas carols will kick off in the square on 11th December while the Mayor’s Christmas Carol Service will be held in Southwark Cathedral on 18th December. For more, see www.london.gov.uk/events.

• Sounds Like Christmas at the V&A. A month long musical celebration across the museum’s South Kensington and Museum of Childhood sites, it features choirs, candlelit concerts, pop-up performances, film screenings, decoration-making workshops, and special installations of objects relating to the music of Christmas, as well as, at the grand entrance to the South Kensington site, ‘The Singing Tree’ (pictured). A project conceived by leading stage designer Es Devlin, the tree features digital word projections that create a poem and comes with a layered polyphonic soundscape of human and machine-generated voices. The season runs until 6th January. For the full programme, see www.vam.ac.uk/Christmas. PICTURE: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

• Greenwich Winter Time Festival. The inaugural festival, set in the grounds of the World Heritage-listed Old Royal Naval College, kicks off in December and features an alternative to the traditional seasonal market as well as a covered ice rink, entertainment including live music, theatre and children’s shows, and an “authentic” Father Christmas experience. Admission charge applies. Runs until 31st December. For more, see www.ornc.org.

• Christmas at the Historic Royal Palaces. As well as its ice rink, Hampton Court Palace is hosting the BBC Good Food’s Festive Feast and a Christmas Music Weekend while at the Tower of London, visitors can once again skate in the dry moat, join in medieval Christmas festivities and enjoy a treat for their ears with the Noel Noel concert in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Kensington Palace, meanwhile, is hosting Christmas festivities under a Victorian theme with a 25 foot tall Christmas tree, a display of illuminated Victorian scenes, live music performances and family friendly events including ‘Under the Christmas Tree’, ‘Funtastic Sunday’, and ‘Tasty Talks’. Check website for dates – admission prices apply. See www.hrp.org.uk for more.

Meanwhile, the final release of New Year’s Eve tickets goes on sale tomorrow (Friday) from noon. People can buy up to four tickets, priced at £10 each to be among the 100,000 spectators lining the banks of the River Thames. Those without a ticket can still watch it live on BBC One. Head to www.london.gov.uk/nye for tickets.

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This Week in London – New early 20th century galleries at the NPG; Modigliani at the Tate; and, Lord John gets a plaque…

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• Works including a recently acquired portrait of Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII) which was painted on the Western Front during World War I, a self-portrait in stained glass of artist and actor Pauline Boty (pictured), and three life-sized World War I portraits of military officers which have been reunited for the first time in decades, are among highlights of the National Portrait Gallery’s new early 20th century galleries. Four new rooms – split into the ‘Early 20th Century’, ‘The Great War’, ‘The Interwar Years’, and the ‘Second World War and Post-War Recovery’ – hold 121 portraits which have been hung chronologically and feature everyone from Virginia Woolf to Sir Winston Churchill, Dame Christabel Pankhurst to Sir Ernest Shackleton. Along with Frank O Salisbury’s oil sketch of Prince Edward, Boty’s stained glass portrait (the gallery’s first), and the three group portraits from World War I,  highlights of the gallery include a 1913 portrait of the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace by Sir John Lavery, a 1931 portrait of Aldous Huxley by Vanessa Bell and a portrait of Roald Dahl in RAF uniform by Matthew Smith. Admission to the galleries is free. For more, see www.npg.org.uk. PICTURE: Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery.

• The “most comprehensive” exhibition of the work of French artist Amedeo Modigliani opens at the Tate Modern today. Modigliani features 100 works including portraits, some of his lesser known sculptures and 10 of his controversial nude paintings, the largest group of such ever shown in the UK. The exhibition re-evaluates Modigliani’s work and experimentation and includes well known and lesser known works with more than 40 of them never seen in the UK before. The works on show include Bust of a Young Woman (1908), Jean Cocteau (1916), and Boy with a Blue Jacket (1919). Runs until 2nd April. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• Former iconic Carnaby Street shop Lord John has been honoured with a City of Wesminster Green Plaque. Lord John, which dressed everyone from The Rolling Stones to the Beatles and The Kinks, was opened by brothers Warren, David and Harold Gold in 1964. The plaque can be seen at 43 Carnaby Street.

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This Week in London – Uncovering the history of the West India Regiments; Blue Plaques for Francis Bacon and Sister Nivedita; and, Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela…

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• Soldiers of African and Caribbean descent who fought for the British Empire in the 19th century as part of the West India Regiments are the subject of a new display at the Museum of London Docklands. Fighting for Empire: From Slavery to Military Service in the West India Regiments focuses particularly on the story of Private Samuel Hodge, the first soldier of African-Caribbean descent to receive the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military honour. Central to the display in the museum’s ‘London, Sugar & Slavery’ gallery, is Louis William Desanges’ painting, The Capture of the Tubabakolong, Gambia 1866 (pictured above), which gives greater prevalence to the British commanding officer Colonel George D’Arcy than to Hodge and which was never displayed with Desanges’ other military paintings in the Victoria Cross Gallery at the Crystal Palace in the 1870s. The exhibition also includes prints, ephemera and maps. Runs until 9th September next year. Admission is free. Meanwhile, this weekend the museum is hosting a Maritime Music Festival celebrating the Docklands’ proud maritime heritage. The festival offers the opportunity to try your hand at a poetry rhyming session, learn knot tying skills and listen to sea shanty crews performing. The festival runs from noon to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. Entry is free. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands.

• An English Heritage Blue Plaque has been unveiled at the former South Kensington home of artist Francis Bacon. Bacon moved to the converted Victorian coach house at 7 Reece Mews in 1961. He kept a studio on the first floor and lived at the property, described as “insanely eccentric”, until his death in 1992. Among significant works he completed there was his first large-scale triptych, Three Studies for a Crucifixion, in 1962 as well as portraits including his 1966 work Portrait of George Dyer Talking. Six years after Bacon’s death in 1992, his studio and its entire contents – including the walls, doors, floor and ceiling – were removed and recreated in The Hugh Lane Gallery in the city of his birth, Dublin. The property is today in the care of  The Estate of Francis Bacon. Meanwhile, another Blue Plaque was unveiled this week, this time commemorating Sister Nivedita. She was one of the most influential female figures in India, an Indian independence campaigner and someone who helped introduce Hindu philosophies to a western audience. The plaque can be found at 21A High Street in Wimbledon, where Nivedita stayed with Swami Vivekananda in 1899. For more on Blue Plaques, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

• The first UK exhibition dedicated to the works Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela has opened at The National Gallery. Lake Keitele: A Vision of Finland centres on the work titled Lake Keitele which, acquired by the gallery in 1999, is one of four versions, all of which have been reunited for the first time in the UK in this display. They are some of the dozen or so works in the exhibition which spans 30 years of Gallen-Kallela’s career. The free show, which can be seen in Room 1 until 4th February, marks the centenary of Finland’s independence. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

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This Week in London – The Lord Mayor’s Show; Cézanne’s portraits; venom and its uses; and, Russia’s visual revolution…

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• The Lord Mayor’s Show takes place this Saturday as the new Lord Mayor of London, Charles Bowman, takes office with the event once again culminating in a spectacular fireworks display over the Thames. The Lord Mayor will arrive in the City at 9am via a flotilla which includes the QRB Gloriana and other traditional Thames barges. Riding in the splendid State Coach, the Lord Mayor then joins in the world famous procession which sets off from Mansion House at 11am, pausing at the Royal Courts where he swears allegiance to the monarch before returning via Victoria Embankment at 1pm. The fireworks display will start at 5.15pm from a barge moored between Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridges. For more details, head to https://lordmayorsshow.london. Meanwhile, on Sunday, annual Remembrance Sunday services will be held around the country centred on the Cenotaph in Whitehall where, in a break with tradition, Prince Charles is expected to lay a wreath on behalf of the Queen who, along with Prince Philip, will be watching from the balcony of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office building.

• More than 50 portraits by Paul Cézanne have gone on show in a landmark exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Cézanne Portraits features works previously unseen in the UK including three self-portraits – one of which is Self Portrait in a Bowler Hat (1885-86) –  and two portraits of his wife –  Madame Cézanne Sewing (1877) and Madame Cézanne (1886–7) – as well as Boy in a Red Waistcoat (1888-90) and Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair, both of which haven’t been seen in London since the 1930s. The exhibition, which includes paintings spanning the period from the 1860s until shortly before Cézanne’s death in 1906, explores the special pictorial and thematic characteristics of the artist’s portraiture work such as his use of complementary pairs and his creation of multiple versions of works featuring the same subject. The exhibition, which has already been on show at the Musée d’Orsay and will be at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC from late March next year, runs until 11th February. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.npg.org.uk. PICTURE: Self-Portrait with Bowler Hat by Paul Cézanne, 1885-6, © Private Collection 

• The use of venom as the ultimate natural weapon is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Natural History Museum on Friday. Venom: Killer and Cure explores how the use and effects of venom, the different biological roles it plays and how humans have attempted to harness and neutralise its power, with the former including some remarkable medical innovations. Specimens on show include everything from snakes to spiders, wasps, scorpions and the duck-billed platypus as well as live example of a venomous creature. Highlights include a gaboon viper head – a snake species with the largest known venom fangs, an emperor scorpion which engages in unusual mating behaviour known as “sexual stingings”, a flower urchin which can inject venom that causes muscular paralysis in humans for up to six hours, a tarantula hawk wasp which has one of the most painful venomous stings, and a box jellyfish, larger specimens of which can cause death in humans in two to five minutes. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nhm.ac.uk.

• Coinciding with the centenary of the Russian Revolution comes a new exhibition at the Tate Modern which offers a visual history of Russia and the Soviet Union. Red Star Over Russia: A Revolution in Visual Culture 1905-55 is based around the collection of late graphic designer David King (1943-2016) and charts how seismic events such as the overthrow of the last Tsar, the revolutionary risings of 1917 and Stalin’s campaign of terror inspired a wave of art and graphic design across the country. The display includes more than 250 posters, paintings, photographs, books and other ephemera by artists such as El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Nina Vatolina. Runs until 18th February. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Art since 9/11; Tove Jansson, Moomin creator; and, celebrating black and white…

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• The first major exhibition in the UK to consider artists’ responses to war and conflict since 9/11 opens at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth today. Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 features 50 works of art including film, sculpture, painting, installations, photography and prints from more than 40 British and international contemporary artists including Ai Weiwei, Grayson Perry, Gerhard Richter, Jenny Holzer, Mona Hatoum, Alfredo Jaar, Coco Fusco and Jake & Dinos Chapman. The exhibition is presented around four key themes – artists’ direct or immediate responses to 9/11, issues of state surveillance and security, our relationship with firearms, bombs and drones, and the destruction caused by conflict on landscape, architecture and people. Highlights include Iván Navarro’s The Twin Towers (2011), Ai Weiwei’s Surveillance Camera with Marble Stand (2015), and James Bridle’s site-specific installation, Drone Shadow Predator, as well as Grayson Perry’s Dolls at Dungeness September 11th 2001 (2001) and, Jamal Penjweny’s photographic series, Saddam is Here (2009-2010). Runs until 28th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.iwm.org.uk/ageofterror.

• The first UK retrospective of the work of famed 20th century Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson opened at the Dulwich Picture Gallery yesterday. Tove Jansson (1914-2001) celebrates the work of the artist known as the creator of the Moomin characters and books but also includes a wider looks at her graphic illustration work and paintings. It features 150 works including self-portraits, landscapes and still-lives never seen before in the UK and a series of Moomin drawings only discovered at the British Cartoon Archive this year. Organised in collaboration with the Ateneum Art Museum, the exhibition can be seen until 28th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. PICTURE: Tove Jansson, Sleeping in the Roots, 1930s, Moomin Museum, Tampere Art Museum Moominvalley Collection (Finnish National Gallery/Yehia Eweis).

• Featuring 50 painted objects created over 700 years, a new exhibition at The National Gallery takes a “radical” look at what happens when artists cast aside the colour spectrum and focus on the power of black and white. Monochrome: Painting in Black and White features paintings and drawings by Old Masters like Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Durer and Rembrandt van Reign alongside works by contemporary artists such as Gerhard Richter, Chuck Close and Bridget Riley. Exhibition opens on Monday and runs until 18th February. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Exploring 140 years of recorded sound; go for a swing at the Tate; and, ‘Daily Funnies’…

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• An exhibition exploring how recorded sound has shaped and influenced our lives since the invention of the phonograph in 1877 has opened at the British Library. Listen: 140 Years of Recorded Sound provides the opportunity to hear rare and unpublished recordings from the British Library’s sound archive as well as view some the library’s rarely seen collection of records, players and recorders. Highlights include a record of James Joyce reading Ulysses in 1924 (one of only two recordings of his voice), the smallest 78 rpm disc ever issued (made for Queen Mary’s doll’s house), playable stamps from the Kingdom of Bhutan and historic voices including those of nursing icon Florence Nightingale (recorded at her London home in 1890), aviator Amelia Earhart (recorded in 1932), and writer Jorge Luis Borges (recorded in 1971). The exhibition also features a specially commissioned sound installation by musician and former British Library composer-in-residence, Aleks Kolkowski. Free to enter, the display in the Entrance Hall Gallery can be seen until 11th March and is accompanied by a programme of events. For more, see www.bl.uk/events/listen-140-years-of-recorded-sound. PICTURE: Wax cylinders from the British Library sound collections © British Library Board.

• Go for a swing! Tate Modern this month has unveiled a large scale interactive installation by Danish collective SUPERFLEX which features dozens of three seater swings weaving through the gallery’s Turbine Hall and out into the landscape beyond. One Two Three Swing! is aimed at encouraging audiences to combat social apathy and work together in a collaborative action to swing. The installation is the third annual Hyundai Commission, a partership between the Tate and Hyundai Motor. Until 2nd April. Admission is free. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• On Now: Daily Funnies: An Exhibition of Strip Cartoons. This display at the Cartoon Museum features many examples of well-known cartoon strips from newspapers and magazines of the past century including everyone from Andy Capp to Rupert, Bristol to Peanuts. Be quick – closes on 18th November. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.cartoonmuseum.org.

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This Week in London – Celebrating India at the Science Museum; Opie and Van Dyck/Dali and Duchamp; and, first NYE tickets on sale…

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• The Science Museum is commemorating 70 years of India’s independence with Illuminating India, a season of exhibitions, specially commissioned artworks and events telling the stories of Indian innovators and thinkers who have often been overlooked or written out of Western versions of history. The exhibition Illuminating India: 5000 Years of Science and Innovation celebrates India’s central role in the history of science and tech by surveying its contributions to subjects ranging from space exploration to mathematics, communication and engineering while Photography 1857-2017 is the first exhibition to provide a survey of photography from its beginnings in India in the mid-19th century through to the present day and pivots around two key dates in India’s history – 1857 and 1947. Alongside the exhibitions, artist Chila Kumari Burman has been commissioned to create a special series of artworks and there is a comprehensive program of related public events, some of which are free. The Illuminating India season runs until 31st March. For the full programme of events, head to www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/indiaseason.

• To mark the return of Sir Anthony van Dyck’s self-portrait (pictured) to the National Portrait Gallery after a three year nationwide tour, contemporary artist Julian Opie has been invited to present his works in dialogue with the painting. Julian Opie After Van Dyck features new and recent works including Faime (2016), Lucia, back 3 (2017) and Beach head, 6 (2017). The free display in the seventeenth century galleries opens tomorrow and runs until 7th January. It’s the final of three displays held in the gallery as part of the three year tour following the purchase of the Van Dyck self-portrait, painted in about 1640, in 2014. For more, see www.npg.org.uk. PICTURE: National Portrait Gallery.

• The friendship and works of Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp are explored in a new exhibition opening at the Royal Academy tomorrow. Dali/Duchamp features more than 80 paintings, sculptures, “readymades”, photographs, drawings, films and archival material and is organised into three thematic sections – ‘Identities’, ‘The Body and the Object’ and, ‘Experimenting with Reality’. Among the highlights is Duchamp’s The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes (1912), Fountain (1917/1964), and The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915), as well as Dali’s The First Days of Spring (1929), Lobster Telephone (1938) and Christ of Saint John of the Cross (c1951). Runs until 3rd January and then moves to The Dali Museum in St Petersburg, Florida. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

• The first tranche of tickets to see this year’s New Years Eve fireworks event over the River Thames in central London were released late last week. The display will feature more than 12,000 fireworks, and involve 2,000 lighting cues and 30 tonnes of equipment on three barges (and, despite the renovation work, the New Year will still be rung in by the bongs of Big Ben!). The tickets, which are available for £10 each, provide access to a range of specific areas – some of these are already sold out. The full cost of the tickets goes towards costs associated with the ticketing system. People can book up to four tickets at www.london.gov.uk/nye.

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This Week in London – ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ and its influence; opera explored; and, fancy yourself a potter?…

by exploringlondon

• One of the National Gallery’s most celebrated paintings – Jan van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait – is being exhibited for the first time alongside works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and its successors in a new exhibition exploring the influence of the 15th century masterpiece on 19th century artists. As well as van Eyck’s work, Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites features Sir John Everett Millais’ Mariana (1851), Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-49), William Holman Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience (1853) and William Morris’s La Belle Iseult (1858 – pictured) along with a host of other works. The exhibition provides a particular focus on one of the most distinctive features of The Arnolfini Portrait – the convex mirror in which van Eyck himself is famously reflected – and, to that end, includes a convex mirror owned by Rossetti and another used by William Orpen. Other objects featured in the exhibition include early photographs, drawings and archival material surrounding the 1842 purchase of The Arnolfini Portrait by the National Gallery as well as a Victorian reproduction of van Eyck’s masterwork, The Ghent Altarpiece. The exhibition in the Sunley Room opens Monday and can be seen until 2nd April. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationalgallery.co.uk/reflections. PICTURE: © Tate, London (N04999)

• The history of opera from its roots in Renaissance Italy to the present day is being explored in a new exhibition opening at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington on Saturday. Opera: Passion, Power and Politics, a collaboration between the museum and the Royal Opera House, focuses on seven operatic premieres in seven cities – Montverdi’s L’incoronazione de Poppea (the first public opera), which premiered in Venice in 1642, Handel’s Rinaldo, which premiered in London in 1711, Mozart’s Le nozze de Figaro, which premiered in Vienna in 1786, Verdi’s Nabucco, which premiered in Milan in 1842, Wagner’s Tannhauser, which premiered in Paris in 1861, Strauss’ Salome, which premiered in Dresden in 1905, and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, which premiered in St Petersburg in 1934.  It features more than 300 objects including Salvador Dali’s costume design for Peter Brook’s 1949 production of Salome, Edouard Monet’s painting Music in the Tuileries Gardens, the original score of Nabucco, and one of only two surviving copies of L’incoronazione de Poppea. There will also be original material from the St Petersburg premier of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk which, including the composer’s original score, stage directions, libretto, set models and costume designs, is being reunited and displayed outside Russia for the first time. World leading performances can be heard over headphones, creating what the museum says is a “fully immersive sound experience”. The exhibition is the first to be displayed in the V&A’s purpose built Sainsbury Gallery and will be accompanied by a programme of live events. Runs until 25th February. For more see www.vam.ac.uk/opera.

• Fancy yourself a potter? A ceramics factory where the public can mould or cast jugs, teapots and flowers opens at the Tate Modern today in an art installation by artist Clare Twomey. Located on level five of the gallery’s Blavatnik Building, FACTORY: the seen and the unseen will launch the second year of Tate Exchange and will comprise a 30 metre work space, eight tonnes of clay, a wall of drying racks and more than 2,000 fired objects. In the first week, visitors are invited to ‘clock in’ and learn the skills of working with clay and then exchange what they have made with other objects made in a factory setting. The production line will stop in the second week and visitors invited to enter a factory soundscape and join a factory tour to discuss how communities are built by collective labour. From now until January next year, Tate Exchange: Production will feature a range of artist’s projects at both the Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool exploring the role of the museum in production from a range of viewpoints. For the full programme of events, see www.tate.org.uk/tateexchange.

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This Week in London – Sir Simon Rattle; Rachel Whiteread at the Tate; and, trading prints…

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• Sir Simon Rattle, in his first season as the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, is the subject of a recently opened exhibition at the Barbican Music Library. Rattle follows the life of a man now considered one of the world’s foremost conductors, from his birth in 1955 to the present day. Featuring photos, awards, video, letters, programmes and unseen items from family collections, it’s curated by his first manager, Martin Campbell-White, and Edward Smith, former CEO of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and has been organised by the LSO in partnership with arts management company Askonas Holt. The free exhibition runs until 22nd December. For more, follow this link.

• The works of Rachel Whiteread, one of the leading artists of her generation, have gone on show at Tate Britain. Spanning the three decades of her career, the show has everything from four early sculptures displayed in her first solo show in 1988 to works made this year especially for Tate Britain with scales ranging from the monumental to the intimate. Whiteread came to public notice in 1993 with the East End unveiling of her first public commission, House, a concrete cast of the interior of an entire terraced house. She won the Turner Prize the same year and represented the UK at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and has had solo exhibitions of her work in museums and galleries including The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Museums of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. Highlights of the show include Untitled (Room 101) 2003, a cast of the room at the BBC’s Broadcasting House which was thought to be the model for Room 101 in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, a selection of Torsos – casts of hot water bottles, and Untitled (One Hundred Spaces) 1995, an installation of 100 resin casts of the underside of chairs (pictured). Runs until 21st January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain. PICTURE: Courtesy of Tate Britain.

• An exhibition which focuses on the use of prints as an “object of trade” opens at the British Museum today. The business of prints, based in part on Antony Griffiths’ prize-winning book The Print Before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820, focuses on four major areas – the production of prints, the lettering on prints, the usage of prints and the collecting of prints and the concern for quality. Delving into the museum’s collection of more than two million prints, it features works by the likes of Durer, Rembrandt and Goya alongside those of far less famous artists. The display can be seen until 28th January in Room 90, the Prints and Drawings Gallery. Entry is free. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

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This Week in London – Open House London’s 25th; the London Design Festival; the ‘discovery’ of Roman London; and, the story of the Scythians retold…

by exploringlondon

• Open House London marks its 25th anniversary this weekend, with free entry into more than 800 of the city’s buildings. For the first time, every London borough is participating in the event which sees the doors flung wide on buildings including the recently revamped New Scotland Yard (right), the skyscraper One Blackfriars nick-named ‘The Vase’ (above), an urban farm in Waterloo and the Francis Crick Institute at King’s Cross as well as traditional crowd-pleasers like BT Tower, William Morris’s Red House and the office towers known as the Cheesegrater and the Gherkin.  The weekend also features some 66 walks and talks. Open House have this year  launched a free app which, available for both Android and Apple, allows users to plan their weekend, view nearby buildings, and filter results by day, architectural type and period. To download the app and to see the full programme of events, head to www.openhouselondon.org.uk. PICTURES: Top – CGI/Right – Tim Soar (Open House London).

• The London Design Festival, now in its 15th year, also kicks off this weekend with a programme of 450 projects and events across the coming week. The V&A will once again form the festival hub with iconic spaces within the museum transformed by a series of special commissions and displays including an immersive coloured light experienced known as Reflection Room and a 21.3-metre-long uid and free-standing three dimensional tapestry called Transmission. Somerset House will host a new group exhibition called Design Frontiers featuring 30 leading international designers while the Oxo Tower Wharf Courtyard will host a specially created micro house, called URBAN CABIN – one of many ‘landmark projects’ to be seen during the week. The festival runs until 24th September. For more – including the full programme of events, see www.londondesignfestival.com.

• The rediscovery of Roman London under the modern city is the subject of a new exhibition which opened at the Guildhall Library in the City this week. The Discovery of Roman London, with a display of objects, archives and 19th century illustrations, looks at the early pioneers of Roman London archaeology over the past three centuries and the establishment of the Guildhall Museum – the precursor to the Museum of London – in 1826 to provide a suitable place for the found artefacts. Runs until 30th November. Entry is free. For more, follow this link.

• The story of ancient nomadic tribes known as the Scythians is told in a new exhibition at the British Museum. Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia features more than 200 objects, many of which have been preserved under permafrost, providing fascinating insights into the lives of the Scythian tribes who lived between 900 and 200 BC. The objects include fur-lined clothes, headgear for horses, gold jewellery, weapons, wooden drinking bowls and even tattooed human remains. There are also a series of painted clay death masks decorated to resemble the faces of the dead which are being shown alongside a reconstructed log-cabin tomb in which they were found. Runs until 14th January in the Sainsbury Exhibition Gallery. Supported by BP, the exhibition has been organised in partnership with the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

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10 sites of significance in Jane Austen’s London…8. A face-to-face encounter with the author…

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It’s said to be the “only reasonably certain portrait from life” – a sketch by Jane’s older sister Cassandra which purportedly depicts the artist.

Found on display in Room 18 of the National Portrait Gallery, the pencil and watercolour sketch dates from about 1810 and was purchased by the gallery in 1948 for £135.

The image was the basis for a late 19th century water-colour image of Jane which was created by Maidenhead artist James Andrews who traced Cassandra’s sketch.

Andrew’s image had been commissioned by Jane’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, and he used an engraving of it – made by William Home Lizars – as a frontispiece to his biography, A Memoir of Jane Austen.

It is an image of that engraving which features on the new £10 polymer banknote going into circulation tomorrow.

The decision to use the later image rather than the original has attracted some criticism – not for the subject but for the fact that, as historian Lucy Worsley told The Sunday Times, it represents “an author publicity portrait after she died in which she’s been given the Georgian equivalent of an airbrushing”.

There has, we should also note, been some criticism of the choice of quote on the note – “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading” comes from Pride and Prejudice and was uttered by the deceitful Caroline Bingley who really has no interest in reading at all!

WHERE: Room 18, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place (nearest Tube station is Charing Cross or Leicester Square); WHEN: 10am to 6pm daily; COST: Free (donations welcome); WEBSITE: www.npg.org.uk

PICTURE: Jane Austen by Cassandra Austen (pencil and watercolour, circa 1810 – NPG 3630) © National Portrait Gallery, London

This Week in London – Totally Thames; RAF Kenley Airfield celebration; win a Quentin Blake poster; and ‘Nature Morte’ at Guildhall…

by exploringlondon

• Totally Thames, the annual month long celebration of London’s river, is once again in swing with a host of events to join in on. The packed programme includes walks and talks such as Friday’s walk exploring the maritime heritage of Deptford, visual arts installations including Maria Arceo’s Future Dust (pictured), and on-river events such as this weekend’s Classic Boat Festival at St Katharine Docks and the marathon Great River Race involving traditional boats as well as a host of musical performances, film screenings, exhibitions and pop-up festivals. Events run over September. For more information on the programme, visit totallythames.org. PICTURE: Courtesy of Thames Festival Trust. © Hydar Dewachi.

• The role RAF Kenley Airfield played in the Battle of Britain will be highlighted in a “Sky Heroes” event at the site this Sunday. RAF Kenley Airfield, which is where Winston Churchill learned to fly, is the most intact fighter airfield from World War II and played a unique role in defending Britain from the German Luftwaffe. Celebrating its centenary, it was one of three main fighter stations, along with Croydon and Biggin Hill, charged with the air defence of London. The day, which is free to attend, will feature guided tours, museum and archaeology stands and replica Spitfire and Hurricane planes in which visitors can sit and have their photos taken. A free shuttle bus service will be operating from nearby stations. The day is being held under the auspices of the Heritage Lottery funded Kenley Revival Project, a partnership between the City of London Corporation, Kenley Airfield Friends Group and Historic England. For more, see www.kenleyrevival.org.

• Win one of 20 London is Open for Summer posters signed by the artist Quentin Blake. The limited edition posters went on sale this week for £10 with all proceeds going to the Red Cross UK Solidarity Fund and to mark that event, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched a social media competition, giving away 20 of them. For details of how to take part, head to www.london.gov.uk/londonisopen. The winners will be announced next week. To purchase one of the posters, head to www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/new-in.

• The 16th tradition of still life meets modern art at the Guildhall Art Gallery’s latest exhibition, Nature Morte. Featuring 100 words of art covering themes ranging from flora and fauna to domestic objects and food, the display features works by major international contemporary artists like Michael Craig-Martin and Gabriel Orozco as well as works by London-based artists and from the City of London’s own historic collection. The exhibition, which is being put on by MOCA London in partnership with the gallery, runs until 2nd April. Admission charge applies and there’s a series of talks to accompany the display. For more, follow this link.

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Where’s London’s oldest…public art gallery?

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The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London’s south celebrates the 200th anniversary of its public opening this year. It is the oldest public picture gallery in all of England.

The origins of the gallery back owe their existence to an art dealership run by a Frenchman, Noël Desenfans, and his Swiss friend, painter Sir Francis Bourgeois. In 1790, the men were commissioned by King Stanislaus II Augustus of Poland to form a royal collection of art for him.

They spent five years doing so but in 1795, the king was forced to abdicate and the two dealers were left with the collection. They began searching for a new home for it but failed to find one and following Desenfans’ death in 1807, Sir Francis decided to leave the collection to Dulwich College (apparently on the advice of his friend, actor John Philip Kemble). The college had been founded in the early 17th century as the ‘College of God’s Gift’ by Edward Alleyn, actor and theatre entrepreneur, who had left it his estate.

Sir Francis died in 1811 and, under the terms of his will, the paintings left to Dulwich had to be made available to the public to view. There was an existing gallery at Dulwich College (the collection had originally been formed around Alleyn’s collection which included portraits or kings and queens) but, conscious that it might not be ideal for displaying the collection, Sir Francis had left £2,000 in his will to refurbish it and made it clear that should this be required, he wanted his friend, Sir John Soane to oversee the work.

Sir John, visiting the college the day after Sir Francis’ death, inspects the existing building but decides that an entirely new wing will need to be built to house the collection. He submitted numerous designs but the cost – more than £11,000 – was considerably more than the college could afford despite Sir John’s efforts to cut costs and simplify. Eventually, after Margaret Desenfans agreed to donate £4,000 of her own money, the college officials agreed to begin construction.

In 1814, the collection was moved into the building and the following year, the now completed building was opened to Royal Academicians and students.  The public opening came two years later, in 1817, and the same year the Desenfanses and Francis Bourgeois were buried in the gallery’s mausoleum as its founders.

Several additions and renovations have since followed (including works after bombing during World War II). The last major works were carried out in the 1990s after which the gallery was formally reopened on 25th May, 2000, by Queen Elizabeth II.

Those who visited the gallery, many as students, have included some big names in the art world – John Constable, JMW Turner and Vincent Van Gogh. Charles Dickens referenced the gallery in his work, The Pickwick Papers, in which he had Samuel Pickwick visit the gallery following his retirement.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery is now an independent registered charity. Its more than 600 works include one of the finest collections of Old Master paintings in the world by artists such as Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Poussin, Watteau, Canaletto, Rubens, Veronese and Murillo. Collection highlights include Rembrandt’s Girl at a Window (1645), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s The Flower Girl (1665-70), Thomas Gainsborough’s Elizabeth and Mary Linley (c 1772) and Sir Peter Lely’s Nymphs by a Fountain (early 1650s).

WHERE: Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, Dulwich (nearest rail is West Dulwich or North Dulwich); WHEN: 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Sunday; COST: £7 adults/£6 seniors/under 18s free (additional cost for special exhibitions); WEBSITE: www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

PICTURES: Courtesy Dulwich Picture Gallery.

This Week in London – Exploring The Forum; VC recipients commemorated; and, Samuel Fosso’s self-portraits…

by exploringlondon

• Nineteenth century Scottish painter David Robert’s painting, The Forum, is at the heart of a new display at the Guildhall Art Gallery exploring the concept of the Roman forum. The display looks at why the forum played such an important role in the Roman world, how it would have looked and what happened there. It also examines the painting in the context of the Robert’s Roman series, his wider body of work and depictions of the ‘grand tour’ by other artists. Admission is free. The exhibition, which is part of Londonium, a series of events, talks and displays focusing on London’s Roman past, runs until 1st January. For more, follow this link. PICTURE: A model of Londinium’s Roman forum in the Museum of London.

• Two young Londoners who were posthumously awarded Victoria Crosses after they were killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele have been honoured with commemoration stones in Victoria Embankment Gardens. Captain Thomas Riversdale Colyer-Fergusson, accompanied by a sergeant and just five men, managed to capture an enemy trench and a machine gun which he turned on his assailants. The 21-year-old attacked again, this time with just his sergeant, and captured another enemy machine gun but soon afterwards was killed by a sniper. Second Lieutenant Dennis George Wyldbore Hewitt, meanwhile, led his company under heavy machine-gun fire while seriously wounded and in pain. The 19-year-old successfully captured and consolidated his objective but he too was killed by a sniper soon after. The two men died on 31st July, 1917. The memorials were erected as part of World War I centenary commemorations which is seeing all 628 Victoria Cross recipients from the war being honoured in their birthplaces.

• On Now: Samuel Fosso: Self-portraits. This exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery features a selection of images from 666 self-portraits taken by Cameroonian-born artist Samuel Fosso in 2015. Each of the shots were taken against the same red backdrop with Fosso adopting an identical head and shoulders pose in each. Photographed every day during October and November, 2015, each work is intended to reflect Fosso’s particular mood at that moment. The photographs, the artist’s first solo display in the UK, are displayed alongside some of the earliest self-portraits that he made while a teenager working in Bangui in the Central African Republic in the 1970s.  In these works, Fosso adopted personas which reflected popular West African culture, from musicians and the latest youth fashions to political advertising.  He employed special cloth backgrounds, in front of which he dressed up in a range of outfits from authentic European costumes and African folk costumes to navy uniforms, karate keikogis and boxer shorts. Runs until 24th September. Admission is free. For more, see www.npg.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Carnival time in Notting Hill!; free tickets at the Tate Modern; and, The City is Ours…

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• The world famous Notting Hill Carnival takes places in London’s west this weekend. The biggest event of its kind in Europe, the programme kicks off Saturday evening (from 6pm to 10pm) with a steel band music competition and more Caribbean-themed outdoor entertainment in Emslie Horniman Pleasance Park. Sunday features the Children’s Parade, performances at the World Music Stage in Powis Square and static sound systems and food stalls at Emslie Horniman Pleasance Park (from 9am to 8.30pm). The Grand Finale parade on Monday features dancers, performers, 60 steel bands and mobile sound systems with more music and food stalls in the parade area as well as on the World Music Stage in Powis Square. This year’s event will also feature a minute’s silence at 3pm on both Sunday and Monday to remember the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster. For more, see www.thelondonnottinghillcarnival.com or Visit London’s special guide. PICTURE: Eddie Starck/Flickr/CC-BY-2.0

• Tate Modern is offering a limited number of free tickets to Soul of a Nation: Art in an Age of Black Power exhibition this Friday night (August’s Uniqlo Tate Late event) to coincide with the Notting Hill Carnival weekend. The tickets will be offered a first come, first serve basis from 6pm. The exhibition, which explores what is meant to be an African American artist during the civil rights movement and at the birth of the Black Power movement, runs until 22nd October. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• On Now: The City is Ours. This major interactive exhibition at the Museum of London explores some of the key issues that affect Londoners and city dwellers elsewhere the world – from housing affordability and urban planning to transport, green spaces and air quality. Spread across three of the museum’s temporary exhibition spaces, key exhibits include a nine metre wide film, Urban Earth, which visualises and compares data from major cities around the world, an Oculus Rift headset which delivers a virtual view from the top of a Hong Kong skyscraper illustrating the impact of building upwards instead of outwards, and an exhibit which allows visitors to control and monitor CCTV cameras as they reflect on the impacts of increased surveillance. The free exhibition – at the heart of the museum’s year long focus on City Now City Future – can be seen until 2nd January. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/thecityisours.

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