The National Windrush Monument (right) was unveiled at Waterloo Station on Windrush Day (23rd June). The bronze sculpture – the work of US-based Jamaican artist Basil Watson – memorialises the British West Indian immigrants who came to the UK on board HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 and later ships and who subsequently became known as the Windrush generation. Funded by a £1 million government grant, it depicts a man, woman and child who, dressed in their “Sunday best”, are climbing a pile of suitcases which represent all the possessions they brought with them. The memorial, which is located inside the station through which thousands of the Windrush Generation passed on their way to their new lives in the UK, was unveiled by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Floella Benjamin, chair of the Windrush Commemoration Committee, reportedly said the monument will “act as a symbolic link to our past and a permanent reminder of our shared history and heritage for generations to come“. Meanwhile, a public bronze sculpture was unveiled outside Hackney Town Hall on the same day which also commemorates the Windrush generation. Warm Shores, the work of London artist Thomas J Price, depicts larger than life-sized a man and woman and was based on 3D scans of real-life residents.
Designed by Kofi Ansah, Ensembles for the wedding of Ashley Shaw-Scott Adjaye and David Adjaye. Ghana, 2014. Photographed in London in 2014 by Robert Fairer
• The work of some 45 designers from more than 20 countries can be seen in a landmark Africa Fashion exhibition opening at the V&A on Saturday. More than 250 objects are on display – half drawn from the museum’s collection and including 70 new acquisitions. Many of the garments come from the personal archives of iconic mid-20th century African designers including Shade Thomas-Fahm, Chris Seydou, Kofi Ansah and Alphadi and the exhibition also features the work of contemporary African fashion creatives such as Imane Ayissi, IAMISIGO, Moshions, Thebe Magugu and Sindiso Khumalo. The display includes personal insights from the designers, together with sketches, editorial spreads, photographs, film and catwalk footage. Runs until 16th April. Admission charge applies. For more, see vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/africa-fashion.
• Discover the role public transport is playing in keeping London green at London Transport Museum’s Depot in Acton Town this weekend. The ‘Act-on It!’ Open Days, being held as part of London Climate Action Week, are part of London Transport Museum’s 18-month programme, Climate Crossroads, which shines a light on sustainable cities, travel, transport and greener skills for the future. Along with the artworks, maps and signage housed at depot, visitors will be able to explore the museum’s extensive collection of historic vehicles including Tube trains, buses, trolleybuses and trams including, for the first time, the iconic RM1 Routemaster, built in 1954, displayed alongside the ADL/BYD Enviro 400 Electric, the best-in class bus from route 63. There’s also family activities – including storey-telling sessions, miniature transport displays made entirely of LEGO, and rides on the London Transport Miniature Railway. Tickets must be booked in advance. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot/summer.
• The Upminster Tithe Barn has an open day on Saturday. The more than 500-year-old barn, these days houses the Museum of Nostalgia which holds more than 14,500 artifacts of domestic and agricultural use, ranging from Roman times to the present day. For more, see http://upminstertithebarn.co.uk.
Young V&A creative Story Telling session. PICTURE: Courtesy of Young V&A
• The V&A is celebrating 150 years since the opening of the Bethnal Green Museum (now known as the Young V&A) with the launch of a year long celebration on Friday. The museum, which opened in 1872 as the first ever museum in east London, is currently undergoing a major redevelopment and is scheduled to reopen in summer, 2023, as a new national museum dedicated to children to the age of 14. To mark the 150th – and a year until Young V&A’s opening – the museum has launched a year-long ‘Reinvent Festival’ with the first event – an online summit called Sparking Creative Futures headlined by children’s author, Ed Vere, and live-illustrated by Beano’s youngest ever artist, Zoom Rockman – on Friday. On Sunday, Young V&A will celebrate its birthday with families at Rich Mix’s ‘Everyone a Maker’ event with free, fun activities. Further events will be held over the year including pop ups at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s Great Get Together on 23rd July featuring large-scale, creative construction and making sessions for children and families using playful building materials by Hackney-based architect Emilie Quene. For more (including the full programme of events), see www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/reinvent-festival-young-va-summer-family-events.
• Europe’s biggest free musical theatre festival – West End LIVE – will transform Trafalgar Square into an open-air theatre this weekend. A joint production by Westminster City Council and the Society of London Theatre, the event will feature hundreds of performers, creatives and production staff, showcasing the best the West End has to offer. No tickets are required for the free event. For more, head to www.westendlive.co.uk.
• An English Heritage Blue Plaque has been unveiled on a house in Hackney, commemorating the hundreds of stranded and sometimes abandoned South and East Asian nannies, known as ayahs, who sheltered there in the early 20th century. The Ayah’s Home at 26 King Edward’s Road housed around 100 women a year between 1900 and 1921 after which the home moved to another address nearby. The ayahs were women who served the British in India and other colonies as children’s nannies, nursemaids and ladies’ maids and who were sometimes required to care for babies, children and their sea-sick mothers on the long sea voyage from the colonies to England but who were generally not expected to serve the families once they arrived, instead either contracted to wait until needed for the return journey or take a passage home. The Hackney shelter, which also welcomed ‘amahs’ – nursemaids of East Asian origin, appears to have been the only one of its kind in Britain for almost the whole of its existence. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.
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• The Royal Parks are running a series of free sessions for bird-watching novices in all eight of its London parks during June and July. The sessions, for which binoculars will be provided, last up to two hours. Pete Lawrence, The Royal Parks’ biodiversity manager, says many people growing up in a city may not have had the “opportunity, the equipment or the know-how to take up this activity” before. “These free sessions aim to make bird watching more accessible, and, if they prove popular, we hope to repeat them in future years.” Author and TV naturalist David Lindo, aka ‘The Urban Birder’, will be leading some of the free bird watching sessions along with The Royal Parks’ conservation officer, Tony Duckett – a six decade veteran birdwatcher, and local bird enthusiast Julia Holland. To book a place, head to www.royalparks.org.uk/birdingtours. The Royal Parks is also hosting a bird watching photography competition with a top prize, binoculars worth £400. Entrants need to take a photo of one of the birds included on the parks’ bird spotter sheets and send it to competition@royalparks.org.uk or submit via The Royal Parks’ social media channels. Find out more here.
• The “music, people and places” central to the grime scene which first emerged in London in the early 2000s are the subject of a new exhibition at the Museum of London. Grime Stories: from the corner to the mainstream, which opens on Friday, is co-curated by Roony ‘Risky’ Keefe, one of grime’s early documentarians, and features a series of newly commissioned films that explore the community at the heart of grime’s success as well as a large-scale illustration from artist Willkay and personal artefacts from the MCs and producers who developed grime’s unique sound. Admission is free. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london/whats-on/exhibitions/grime-stories.
• The ideas of repair, care and healing are explored in a new exhibition which opened at Somerset House this week. Eternally Yours, which is being staged across three Terrace Rooms, showcases some diverse examples of creative reuse including transformed items salved in the aftermath of Japan’s 2011 earthquake, shoes worn by Syrian migrants which have stories of survival sewn into the soles and a jumper from Annemor Sundbø’s ragpile collection which has been transformed by Celia Pym. At the heart of the exhibition is ‘The Beasley Brothers’ Repair Shop’, a pop-up created by designer Carl Clerkin and modelled on traditional East End repair shops of old, which is hosting live workshops and demonstrations from artists and designers. The free exhibition and accompanying events runs until 18th September. For more, see www.somersethouse.org.uk.
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• A free display featuring the first coin bearing a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II has opened at the British Museum. Part of the celebrations marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, The Asahi Shimbun Display Mary Gillick: modelling The Queen’s portrait showcases the production and reception of the coin which was designed in 1952 and released the following year. Gillick’s portrait – which remained in circulation on coins in the UK until the 1990s and was also adapted for use on commemorative stamps – combined modern design with Italian Renaissance influences. Can be seen until 31st July. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.
• The UK’s first Stolperstein or “stumbling stone” has been installed in Soho as part of an initiative to remember the victims of the Nazis. The small brass plaque commemorates former resident Ada van Dantzig, a Dutch-Jewish paintings conservator for the National Gallery who came to London in the 1930s and worked and resided in Golden Square in Soho (where the plaque has been installed). She later re-joined her family in the Netherlands and was arrested in France in early 1943 along with her mother, father, sister and brother. Deported to Auschwitz, Ada, along with her parents, was murdered there on 14th February, 1943. Artist Gunter Demnig created the project almost 25 years ago to commemorate victims of Nazi Persecution during the Holocaust. More than 100,000 of stones have now been laid in 26 countries throughout Europe with the location of the stones the last address of those being remembered.
• A pioneering female landscape gardener has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at her former flat in Shaftesbury Avenue. Fanny Wilkinson, who is believed to be Britain’s first professional female landscape gardener, was also a campaigner for the protection of open space in London. She lived and worked at the flat, which overlooks an open space she laid out herself, between 1885 and 1896. Wilkinson began her career as an honorary landscape gardener to the Metropolitan Public Boulevards, Gardens and Playgrounds Association – an organisation whose mission was the formation of gardens and public parks that would create playgrounds and green ‘lungs’, especially in poor districts of the capital. In June, 1885, it was agreed that she could charge five per cent on all her MPGA payments, leading her to drop the ‘honorary’ title and become Britain’s first professional female landscape gardener. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.
• A painting by Pablo Picasso – Woman with a Book (1932) from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California – and a painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres – Madame Moitessier (1856) – are being shown together for the first time at The National Gallery. Picasso admired Ingres and referred to him throughout his career and this connection can be seen not only in his paintings but in drawings and studies he made during his ‘neoclassical’ phase in the 1920s. He encountered Madame Moitessie at an exhibition in Paris in 1921 and 11 years later painted Woman with a Book. The paintings, which are being show under a collaborative initiative between the two institutions, can be seen in Room 1 until 9th October. Admission is free. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.
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Four days of celebration were held from Thursday to Sunday to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. Here’s a short selection of images from the events…
• The Queen’s Birthday Parade – Trooping the Colour – takes place today (Thursday) at Horse Guards Parade. It’s the largest parade in three years due to the coronavirus pandemic and will involve more than 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians. The day will feature an appearance by the Queen on the Buckingham Palace balcony and an RAF flypast.
• More than 3,000 beacons will be lit all around the world tonight (Thursday) to mark the Jubilee. The event will culminate in a 21 metre high giant tree sculpture constructed of 350 smaller trees – the ‘Tree of Trees’ beacon – being set alight out the front of Buckingham Palace at 9pm. For more, see www.queensjubileebeacons.com.
• A service of thanksgiving will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday (sadly without the Archbishop of Canterbury who has COVID-19 and mild pneumonia). The event is private. The cathedral is also hosting Jubilee: St Paul’s, the Monarch and the Changing World, an exhibition which explores the history of Jubilee celebrations at St Paul’s Cathedral across three centuries and features objects from the cathedral’s collections including the Jubilee Cope which depicts the spires of 73 churches in the Diocese of London, three Royal Peculiars and St Paul’s Cathedral and was created to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of 1977. Entry to the exhibition is included in general admission. For more, see www.stpauls.co.uk/platinum-jubilee.
• The BBC’s Platinum Party at the Palace will take place on Saturday featuring a line-up of performers from the worlds of music and dance. Those attending include Duran Duran, Andrea Bocelli, Mimi Webb, Sam Ryder, Jax Jones, Celeste, Nile Rodgers, Sigala and Diversity as well as stars from stage, screen and the sporting world such as Sir David Attenborough, Emma Raducanu, David Beckham, Stephen Fry, Dame Julie Andrews, The Royal Ballet, and Ellie Simmonds who will also pay tribute in person and on film. Queen + Adam Lambert will open the concert, sure to evoke memories of Brian May’s historic appearance on the Palace roof at the Golden Jubilee Concert in 2002 – and Diana Ross will close it in her first UK live performance in 15 years. Advance booking and tickets are required but the event will be shown live on the BBC.
• The finale of the weekend will be the Platinum Jubilee Pageant which will take place in “four acts” through central London on Sunday. The pageant, which will begin with the ringing of the bells of Westminster Abbey, will start with a military spectacle – ‘For Queen and Country’ – celebrating all three services in the UK Armed Forces and involving some 1,750 people including from Commonwealth nations. Act two – ‘The Time of Our Lives’ – will feature a cast of some 2,500 people showing how British culture has changed over the past 70 years. In act three, ‘Let’s Celebrate’, performers will “mash street theatre, music-on-the-move, urban dance, and the very best of Carnival, May Day, Mela, Fiesta and Mardi Gras to celebrate The Queen’s extraordinary life experience”; this will also include a ‘River of Hope’ procession featuring children from across the UK carrying some 200 silk flags featuring pictures depicting their hopes and aspirations for the next 70 years, particularly with regard to climate change. The musical finale – ‘Happy and Glorious’ – will focus around the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace and will see attendees singing the National Anthem with appearances by Jeremy Irons, Bill Bailey and Gok Wan and Ed Sheeran and the public invited to become part of the performance. The pageant will start at Westminster Abbey and head down Whitehall, turn through Admiralty Arch into The Mall, travel to Buckingham Palace and then turn down Birdcage Walk. For more, see www.platinumpageant.com.
Twenty million seeds have been sown into the Tower of London’s moat to create a floral display known as ‘Superbloom’ as part of the celebrations surrounding Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.
Paths, walkways and viewing points have been installed throughout and in a first at the Tower, a four lane slide has been installed to provide an unusual entrance to the display.
Those visiting the display – which features wildflowers such as red poppies, yellow corn marigolds and blue cornflowers as well as garden plants including sunflowers, cosmos and rudbeckias – will hear a score by Scottish composer Erland Cooper – Music for Growing Flowers – while other attractions include a willow sculpture by artist Spencer Jenkins and a swarm of intricate copper insects by sculptor Mehrdad Tafreshi.
The centrepiece of the display is the “Queen’s Garden” which has been installed by Grant Associates – the lead designers for the Superbloom project – in the Tower’s historic Bowling Green.
Inspired by the Queen’s Coronation gown, this garden features a combination of meadow flowers, topiary and summer-flowering perennials, bulbs and ornamental grasses and draws on the colours, shapes and motifs used by designer Norman Hartnell in the 1953 gown.
Rising above the garden are 12 cast glass forms by glass artist Max Jacquard which represent the national emblems featured in Hartnell’s design and in their centre sits a glass crown, a reminder of the Tower’s role as home of the Crown Jewels.
Tower Wharf, meanwhile, has been transformed into a food and drinks venue, with street food and bars from KERB and fine dining available riverside in ‘The Glass Rooms’. The flowers are expected to gradually bloom in June and will continue to evolve until September. For more, including how to purchase tickets, head here.
• A new exhibition exploring the Queen’s role during wartime opens at IWM London in Lambeth tomorrow. Part of a suite of events at IWM venues celebrating the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, Crown and Conflict: Portraits of a Queen in Wartime features 18 images drawn from the museum’s image archive which chart the Queen’s experience of war – from growing up during World War II when she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service to her role in carrying out important public duties involving the armed forces, including at the annual Service of Remembrance. Among newly digitised photographs included in the display are an image of the Queen dressed in overalls and cap while working on a vehicle during her time in the ATS, and another showing her with her father, King George VI, and mother, Queen Elizabeth, during a visit to airborne forces in 1944. IWM London is also launching a dedicated trail of historic objects spread across five gallery spaces which explores the Royal Family’s long-standing association with the British armed forces. Objects include a Princess Mary Gift Fund box which was sent to those serving at Christmas in 1914. Runs until 8th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.iwm.org.uk/events/queens-platinum-jubilee-iwm-london.
• Dippy the dinosaur is back for a limited time at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington from tomorrow. A free, temporary exhibition – Dippy Returns: the nation’s favourite dinosaur – gives visitors the chance to get up close and personal with the 26 metre-long dinosaur which first went on display at the museum in 1905. The display comes at the end of a record-breaking tour of the UK in which Dippy was seen by more than two million people. Can be seen until 2nd January. To book tickets, head to www.nhm.ac.uk.
• The first major exhibition to explore the history and future of cancer treatment and research opened at the Science Museum in South Kensington this week. Cancer Revolution: Science, innovation and hope features more than 100 objects including some never-before seen as well as information on cutting edge treatment and research, new artist commissions and installations, interactive exhibits and a breadth of personal stories. Runs until January, 2023. Admission is free but bookings required. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/cancer-revolution-science-innovation-and-hope.
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Iconic London locations including Tower Bridge, The London Eye, and Marble Arch turned purple last night to mark the opening of the new Elizabeth Line today. Thousands of people are today expected to use the new Tube line which provides faster journeys between Paddington and Abbey Wood via 10 new stations using Class 345 trains that are more and than one-and-a-half times longer than a standard Tube train and able to carry 1,500 passengers. The line’s opening is the latest step in the £18.8 billion Crossrail project which is linking Reading, to the west of London, with Heathrow before travelling through central London to connect with Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said it was an “historic day”. “This is a huge moment, not just for London but the entire country – particularly in this special Jubilee year…This brand new line is the most significant addition to our transport network in decades.” Last week, the Queen and Prince Edward attended Paddington Station to mark the completion of the new line.
• Marble Hill in London’s west reopens on Saturday following a restoration and the reinstatement of a lost pleasure garden. Once home to King George II’s mistress Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, Marble Hill is a rare example of a home built by and for a woman in Georgian England and is one of the last survivors of the many 18th century villas that once fronted the Thames in the area. Marble Hill was built as a country retreat from London’s crowds and among those entertained here were poet Alexander Pope, Horace Walpole, John Gay and Jonathan Swift. English Heritage has invested £3 million into a major transformation of the house and 66 acres of riverside parkland which also used a £5 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The National Community Lottery Fund. This has included the reinstatement of a pleasure garden – an “Arcadian landscape” which was inspired by sketches made by Pope – with the opening up of previously inaccessible woodland areas, the reinstallation of paths and the replanting of avenues of trees that led from the house to the river. Howard’s ninepin bowling alley has been restored and an 18th-century garden grotto has been excavated and returned to its 18th-century appearance. Inside the house, English Heritage has re-instated the paint scheme that existed during Howard’s lifetime in several interior spaces, including the Great Room, conserved the fine collection of early Georgian paintings which includes portraits of Howard’s circle and re-created furniture including an intricate carved peacock motif table and luxurious crimson silk wall hangings in her dressing room. The new display has reframed Howar’s beyond being simply the King’s mistress by also exploring her abusive first marriage and the role deafness played in her life as well as her rise in Georgian society and the social circles she captivated. Entry to the house is free. For more, head to www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/marble-hill-house/.
Harry Kane of England celebrates after scoring their side’s second goal during the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship Round of 16 match between England and Germany at Wembley Stadium on 29th June, 2021 in London, England. PICTURE: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images.
• England football captain Harry Kane is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Museum of London on Saturday. Harry Kane: I want to play football features sporting memorabilia including the shirt Kane, who grew up in Chingford, East London, wore on his debut for England where he scored against Lithuania just 79 seconds after coming on the pitch, Kane’s MBE which was awarded to him in March 2019 for ‘services to sport’ and the 2018 World Cup Golden Boot (Kane being one of only two British players to receive a Golden Boot at a World Cup competition, where he was named Man of the Match three times) as well as family photos. The display also includes a changing room space where visitors can listen to Kane’s pre-match playlist and an interactive area where visitors can learn more about who has inspired Harry and share their own hopes and dreams. A programme of activities for families and children will run alongside the free display. Runs until December. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk.
• The use of gold in embellishing and enhancing the written word across cultures, faiths and through time is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the British Library. Gold, which opens Friday, showcases some of the most luxurious illuminated manuscripts, gold-tooled books, sacred texts and scrolls from the British Library’s collection with objects on display including the Harley Golden Gospels, the Lotus Sutra and a treaty in Malayalam, beautifully inscribed on a long strip of gold itself. Admission charge applies. Runs until 2nd October. For more, see www.bl.uk.
Queen Elizabeth II didn’t attend the State Opening of Parliament last Tuesday for the first time in almost 60 years with Prince Charles delivering the Queen’s Speech for the first time. In an event that’s all about pomp and pageantry, more than 500 soldiers and 125 military horses took part in a variety of ceremonial roles over the day.
• Charles Jennens, who is best-known as the librettist of Handel’s Messiah but was also a patron of the arts, scholar and educator, is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury on Friday.Charles Jennens: Patron & Polymath features portraits, correspondence and printed documents reflecting the varied interests and achievements of this Georgian character. Jennens was a non-juror – meaning he supported the legitimacy of the deposed Catholic Stuarts – but was also a Protestant. His art collection was one of the best in Britain and his Palladian mansion, Gopsall Hall in Leicestershire, featured a music room with an organ built to Handel’s specifications. Admission charge applies. Runs until 16th October. For more, see https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/event/charles-jennens-polymath/.
• Dr John Conolly, an early advocate of human treatments for people living with mental illness and the former Hanwell Asylum have been commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque to mark Mental Health Awareness Week. The plaque has been placed on what was the left wing of the asylum and is now part of St Bernard’s Hospital. It was here that Conolly, who was appointed Resident Physician at the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in 1839 – then one of the biggest asylums in London, advocated a system of ‘non-restraint’ which, though initially seen as controversial, drew support from reformers and which by 1846 had been embraced as ruling orthodoxy by the then-new national Lunacy Commission. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.
• On Now: The works of Kawanabe Kyōsai, the most popular Japanese painter of the late 19th century, are on show in the Royal Academy’s Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries.Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection focuses largely on the art of sekiga or ‘spontaneous paintings’ which were produced at ‘calligraphy and painting parties’ (shogakai), often fuelled by prodigious amounts of saké. The display – the first monographic exhibition of Kyōsai’s work in the UK since 1993 – includes around 80 words, many of which have never been exhibited. Admission charge applies. Runs until 19th June. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.
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City of London-managed open spacesEpping Forest, Burnham Beeches and Ashtead Common have been selected to be part of a nationwide network of 70 ancient woodlands to be dedicated to The Queen in celebration of the Platinum Jubilee. At almost 6,000 acres, Epping Forest is London and Essex’s largest green space and is known as the “green lungs” of London. Burnham Beeches, located in Buckinghamshire, is only a square mile in size but is described as a “New Forest in miniature” while Ashtead Common in Surrey’s 200 hectares of open public space is home to more 1,000 living ancient oak pollards. For more on The Queen’s Green Canopy initiative, see www.queensgreencanopy.org. For more on the City of London’s green spaces, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do.
• The connection between Disney’s animated films and French 18th-century art is explored in an exhibition at the Wallace Collection.Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, which is being held in collaboration with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, features more than 120 examples of production artwork and works on paper from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library and the Walt Disney Archives alongside approximately 30 18th-century artworks. The latter include Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s much-loved painting, The Swing (c1767), which provided inspiration for Disney films including Beauty and the Beast (1991), Tangled (2010) and Frozen (2013) and which is being showcased for the first time since its recent conservation. The exhibition, which was previously at the New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, can be seen until 16th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.wallacecollection.org.
• Eid in the Square returns to Trafalgar Square this Saturday for the first time since 2019. The day, held from noon to 6pm to mark the celebration that follows the end of Ramadan, features Islamic inspired art, culture and comedy on the main stage alongside a feast of food stalls from across the world. Performers include Baha Yetkin Sufi Ensemble, Nafees Ifran & Qalandar Qawwali Band, Dur Dur Band, Star Children’s Choir, spoken word poet Hussain Manawer, comedy sketch show favourites, ‘The Halalians’, Alif New Beginnings, and award-winning music producer Naughty Boy who will present his Naughty Boy Kitchen pop-up serving signature dishes fusing his British upbringing and Pakistani heritage. Other family-friendly activities being held on the day including calligraphy, storytelling, mehndi, face painting, and drama and poetry workshops, as well as a variety of sports activities including Muslim Girls Fencing and Sisterhood FC.
• World renowned philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), was commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at his former Holland Park home. Berlin lived at 33 Upper Addison Gardens for nearly six-and-a-half years while attending St Paul’s School, then located in Hammersmith – a period he later referred to as “my golden childhood”. The house, which was purchased by his timber merchant father, was the family’s first permanent home in the UK following their arrival from Latvia. Berlin was also commemorated this week with a plaque on another of his former homes, this one in Hampstead. The Heath and Hampstead Society plaque was placed on the property at number 49 Hollycroft Avenue which was where Berlin’s family moved in October, 1928. While he left for Oxford University that same month, he spent much time there during his university vacations. Oxford was Berlin’s main base for the rest of his life. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.
Walter Sickert, ‘Little Dot Hetherington at the Bedford Music Hall’ (1888) Private collection. Photo: James Mann
• Britain’s biggest retrospective on the work of artist Walter Sickert (1860-1942) in almost 30 years opens at the Tate Britain in Millbank today. The exhibition features more than 150 of his works spanning the six decades of his career. They include paintings and drawings of music halls in London and Paris such as The Old Bedford (1894-5) and Théâtre de Montmartre (c1906) and an examination of key influencers upon his work such as American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler whose A Shop (1884-90) is being shown with Sickert’s A Shop in Dieppe (1886-8) as well as Whistler’s 1895 portrait of Sickert. Other works on show include The Camden Town Murder (1908), Ennui (1914) and Off To the Pub (1911). Admission charge applies. Runs until 18th September. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/walter-sickert.
• A new exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery explores the truth behind 18th century gossip suggesting 17th century Dutch artist Philips Wouwerman was a plagiarist. True Crime: The Case of Philips Wouwerman looks at claims the painter, who created more than 600 paintings over his career, stole the drawings of the dead artist Pieter van Laer and subsequently used them for his own works. The display features works by Wouwerman and Van Laer as well as expert testimony from the past and present. It’s the first in a series of displays – Unlocking Paintings – which have been devised by the recently appointed curator Helen Hillyard to present new perspectives on the Gallery’s collection. Can be seen until 21st August. For more, follow this link.
• A self-taught Victorian physicist, Oliver Heaviside, has been commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at his former home in Camden Street. The property is where the young Victorian scientist, who had been left almost entirely deaf after suffering scarlet fever in childhood, continued with his self-education after leaving school at 16 and where he later worked on his ground-breaking interpretation of James Clerk Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Heaviside played a key role in the development and advancement of electrical communications and was even name-checked in Cats where a line referring to “the Heaviside layer” is a reference to his discovery of a reflective layer in the upper atmosphere which allowed radio waves to be ‘bent’ around the earth. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.
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• A free display on the cultural heritage of Ukraine has opened at the British Museum. Located in the museum’s ‘Collecting the world’ gallery, Ukraine: Culture in crisis features objects drawn from the museum’s collection including a 5,500-year-old painted storage jar, hand-coloured lithographs of a man and a woman in Ukrainian dress dating from about 1813, and, an Easter egg decorated with the dove of peace (pictured) dating from between 1970 and 1980. There are also objects from the Greek colony of Olbia established on the Black Sea between 600 and 300 BC including a black glazed, fluted amphora from southern Italy dating from between 300 and 250BC. For more, head to www.britishmuseum.org. To learn more about the protection of cultural heritage in Ukraine visit icom-poland.mini.icom.museum/icom-poland-appeal-help-us-help-ukraine.
• The earliest surviving printed news report in Britain of the 1513 Battle of Flodden and an original BBC radio script of the D-Day landings are among exhibits at the British Library’s first major exhibition putting a spotlight on the role news plays in our society. Other exhibits on show at Breaking the News, which opens on Friday, include smashed hard drives used by The Guardian to store Edward Snowden’s hard files. The display explores what makes an event news and the meaning of a free press as well as the ethics involved in making the news, news objectivity and how the way we encounter news has evolved over five centuries of news publication in Britain. Runs until 21st August. Admission charge applies. For more, head to www.bl.uk/events/breaking-the-news.
• St George’s Day celebrations return to Trafalgar Square this Saturday. The free family event, which runs from noon until 6pm, will feature live music by the likes of string quartet Bowjangles, hoedown collective Cut A Shine, brass band Das Brass and folk headliner James Riley & the Rooftop Assembly. There will also be appearances from St George with his Dragon, Divine stilt walkers and the Pearly Kings and Queens as well as a range of food stalls. Other family-oriented activities including The Knights Training School, the Storytorium, a dragon Selfie station, face painting, upcycled arts and crafts, and a games area.
• The art and poster stores at the London Transport Museum’s Depot in Acton Town will be open to the public this weekend. The Art of the Poster Open Days, which run from today until Sunday, will give the public the chance to view some of the more than 30,000 posters in the depot’s collection and hear from expert guides about how posters have characterised London and its transport over the past century. There will also be talks from artists, curators and historians and visitors have the chance to design their own posters in creative workshops as well as, on Saturday and Sunday, riding the London Transport Miniature Railway. Timed tickets must be booked in advance. Admission charges apply. For bookings, head to www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot/art-poster.
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• Hampton Court Palace’s Tulip Festival – the largest of its kind in the UK – is returning following its successful inaugural year in 2021. From Friday until 2nd May (depending on flowering periods), the palace’s 60 acres of formal gardens are expected to be filled with rare, historic and specialist tulip varieties inspired by Queen Mary II’s famous 17th century collection which was once housed at the palace. Some 120,000 tulip bulbs of 60 different varieties have been planted, including breath-taking floating tulip vases located in the palace’s famous fountains, and floral displays which will fill the cobbled courtyards of Base Court and Clock Court. Visitors will be able to find out all about the links between the flower and the palace’s history with a dedicated Tulip Festival Guide. Included with admission. For more, head here.
• New exhibits marking the 40th anniversary of the Falklands Conflict have gone on show at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. Among the new items on display are drawings by Linda Kitson, the first female artist commissioned by IWM to accompany troops into conflict, and images of the conflict – many of which have never been seen before – taken by photographer Paul RG Haley who covered it for Soldier Magazine. The museum is also exploring the story and legacy of the conflict through a digital programme of events including a series of short films and a new episode of the Conflict of Interest podcast featuring actor Katherine Parkinson. For more, see www.iwm.org.uk.
• The Regent’s Park will soon boast a new 1.5 acre garden at its centre in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. The new garden, to be created on the site of a former plant nursery near the Inner Circle, will include design features that reflect the Queen’s “love of trees and nature”. The Royal Parks will be committing £1 million to the project and will seek external funding and public donations. Designs for the new park will be shared as they are developed. Meanwhile, The Royal Parks have also announced they will be creating a new wood in Richmond Park as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy Initiative. The new woodland, which will be located adjacent to Ham Cross, will be planted with 70 large trees, each one to mark a year of Her Majesty’s reign.
Arks of Gimokudan by Leeroy New, 2022 (Artist’s Rendition)
The Arks of Gimokudan, the first large-scale installation by Philippine artist-designer Leeroy New, has taken up residence in Somerset House’s central courtyard to mark Earth Day later this month. The installation features a fleet of three ships – made using reused and recycled materials and plastic waste – which appear to float some three metres above ground, inviting visitors to imagine themselves underwater and looking up at the vessals which draw on the history, culture and mythologies of his home nation of the Philippines, the country most at risk from the climate crisis according to a 2019 report. The ships represent a Spanish imperial galleon highlighting the Philippines’ long history of colonisation, a contemporary, military battleship, referencing continued territorial conflict and international tension in the region, and a futuristic spaceship, inspired by New’s fascination with sci-fi and world-making while the overall work also references Mebuyan, the Goddess of Gimokudan (Death and Fertility). Earth Day will be celebrated on 22nd April and the work can be seen in the Edmond J Safra Fountain Court until 26th April. Meanwhile, the first in the series of Morgan Stanley Lates at Somerset House with The Courtauld will take place on Wednesday (13th April) with Leeroy New in which visitors are invited to take part in a free live sculpting workshop in the courtyard. There will also be food from Hackney’s Bongbong’s Manila Kanteen, dance performances from 2022 Olivier award nominee Julia Cheng, a DJ, drinks and more. For more, see www.somersethouse.org.uk.
Itaya Hiroharu, folding screen paintings, 1860. Sent to Queen Victoria by Shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi, 1860.
• A first-of-its-kind exhibition featuring the Royal Collection’s Japanese works of art opens at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, tomorrow.Japan: Courts and Culture, features more than 150 works including rare porcelain, samurai armour, woodcut prints, embroidered screens and a range of diplomatic gifts sent during the reigns of monarchs ranging from King James I to Queen Elizabeth II. Among the highlights are a pair of folding screens sent to Queen Victoria in 1860 from the Japanese Shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi which will go on public display for the first time since they arrived at the British court 162 years ago. The screen paintings, which depict the changing seasons, were not thought to have survived but in recent years research has revealed the two screens were the work of Itaya Hiroharu, one of the artists likely to have worked on Queen Victoria’s gifts. Also included in gift was a set of lacquer furniture, spears inlaid with glittering mother of pearl, and swords made by leading court swordsmiths – all of which will also be on display. Admission charge applies. Runs until 26 February, 2023. For more, see www.rct.uk.
• Marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael, one of the first-ever exhibitions to explore the complete career of this giant of the Italian Renaissance opens at The National Gallery on Saturday. The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Raphael, which was supposed to be held in 2020 and was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, features more than 90 exhibits. They include a rare gathering of Raphael’s paintings of the Virgin and Child including Ansidei Madonna (The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas of Bari) (1505), two bronze roundels – The Incredulity of Saint Thomas and The Descent into Limbo – from Santa Maria della Pace which have never previously exhibited outside Italy and which are attributed to Cesarino Rossetti after designs by Raphael, and a room devoted to Raphael’s frescoes for Pope Julius II’s private apartments. There are also several of his original print designs, an survey of ancient Rome he undertook for Pope Leo X, tapestry designs including Saint Paul Preaching at Athens (workshop of, or on behalf of, Pieter van Aelst, active about 1490–1533, after design by Raphael, about 1517–19), and portraiture from his final years including Portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1518) and Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1519). Admission charge applies. Runs until 31st July. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/the-credit-suisse-exhibition-raphael.
• The British Library’s Food Season kicks off today with almost two months of online and in-person events inspired by the cookbooks, recipes and culinary stories in the collection. Highlights include chef Ainsley Harriott talking about his life and career with food-writer Melissa Thompson, food-writer Maunika Gowardan celebrating India’s breadth of food cultures with chefs and food-writers including Ravinder Bhogal, Romy Gill, Kavi Thakrar and Farokh Talati, chef and broadcaster Andi Oliver discussing Jessica B Harris’ 50- year career examining the history and meaning of food for the African diaspora, and psychologist Kimberley Wilson chairing a discussion about the food prisoners are fed inside British correctional institutions and if it impacts rehabilitation. Now in its fifth year, the 2022 Food Season is supported by KitchenAid. For the full programme of events, head to www.bl.uk/events/food-season.
• Textile designer Enid Marx – famous for her seat fabric designs on the London Underground – has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque. The plaque was unveiled this week at her former home at 39 Thornhill Road where she lived and worked for more than 30 years. Marx, who shared the house with her partner, Margaret Lambert, and friends Eleanor Breuning and Grace Lambert (Breuning continues to live at the house today), had a purpose-built studio in the back garden which remains in similar condition to when she left it almost 25 years ago. Alongside her work for the London Underground, Marx also is known for her design of postage stamps marking the start of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign in 1953. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.
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