Humans might be struggling to stay warm as the ‘Beast from the East’ hits the city but at ZSL London Zoo, the penguins are feeling very much at home. PICTURE: © ZSL London Zoo
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This Week in London – ‘Old Flo’ on show; Peter Pan in the Docklands; and hurry to see Winnie-the-Pooh…
• A new exhibition charting the history of Henry Moore’s sculpture, Draped Seated Woman (known affectionately as Old Flo), has opened at Canary Wharf. Indomitable Spirit features traces the creation of the 2.5 metre high bronze sculpture in 1957-58, its placement in 1962 on the Stafford Estate in Stepney, and, in 1997, its removal to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park where it has spent the last 20 years before returning to the East End – this time Cabot Square – last year. It also explores the artist’s life, career and legacy and the reasons as to why Old Flo – part of an edition of six sculptures – became such an important feature in the East End. The exhibition can be seen in the lobby of One Canada Square until 6th April. Admission is free. For more, see www.canarywharf.com. PICTURE: Henry Moore’s ‘Draped Seated Woman’, Canary Wharf.
• The first of two Peter Pan-themed weekends kicks off at the Museum of London Docklands this Saturday. Adventures in Peter Pan’s Neverland features a series of interactive events film screenings and performances across the weekend with professional character actors leading workshops and re-enacting short scenes from the story. There will also be “sightings” of Captain Hook’s pirates and other characters and two screenings of the classic animated film Peter Pan each day. Money will be raised for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity through donations on ticket sales and other fundraising activities during the event. Runs from 10.45am to 4pm this Saturday and Sunday and again on 3rd and 4th March. Tickets start at £4. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk.
• On Now: Winner-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic. This exhibition at the V&A, which is closing on 8th April, features original drawings by EH Shepard – on show in the UK for the first time – created to illustrate AA Milne’s classic tale and, as well as examining Milne’s story-telling techniques and Shepard’s illustrative style, takes a look at the real people, relationships and inspirations behind the bear’s creation. Around 230 objects are featured in the display and as well as original manuscripts, illustrations, proofs and early editions, they include letters, photographs, cartoons, ceramics, fashion and video and audio clips, with the latter including a 1929 recording of Milne reading Winnie-the-Pooh). Other highlights include Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh manuscript and pages from the manuscript of House at Pooh Corner as well as Shepard’s first character portraits of Winnie and Christopher Robin nursery tea set which was presented to then-Princess Elizabeth in 1928. Admission charge applies. For more see, www.vam.ac.uk/winniethepooh. PICTURE: Line block print, hand coloured by E.H. Shepard, 1970, © Egmont, reproduced with permission from the Shepard Trust
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This Week in London – Chinese New Year, and, David Milne at Dulwich
• London’s Chinatown will come alive this Sunday to mark the Year of the Dog. The biggest Chinese New Year celebrations outside of Asia feature a parade – which kicks off at 10am with a dragon and lion dance in Charing Cross Road before making its way through Chinatown where between noon and 6pm people get up close to lion dances, take selfies with Chinese zodiac animals and enjoy traditional Chinese food. Festivities in Trafalgar Square, meanwhile, kick off at 11am with the Lions’ Eye-Dotting Ceremony at noon while there’s entertainment including live performances, family-friendly entertainments and martial arts displays at a series of West End locations including Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, Shaftesbury Avenue between noon and 5pm. For more, check out the Visit London guide. Meanwhile the Museum of London Docklands is also celebrating the Year of the Dog with a range of free cultural events on Friday (the actual date of the New Year) including everything from ribbon dancing classes to taekwondo taster lessons, calligraphy and a spectacular dragon dance. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands. PICTURE: Paul (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
• The works of one of Canada’s greatest modernist painters, David Milne (1882-1953), have gone on show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. David Milne: Modern Painting follows Milne’s career chronologically, charting his development as an artist as he moves from New York to the war ravaged landscapes of Europe and back to the fields and open skies of North America. Highlights include Fifth Avenue, Easter Sunday (1912), the watercolour Bishop’s Pond (1916), Montreal Crater, Vimy Ridge (1919) – one of his most famous war paintings, White, the Waterfall (1921) and Summer Colours (1936). Runs until 7th May. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.
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LondonLife – Taking stock at the ZSL London Zoo…
Last week was the ZSL London Zoo’s annual stocktake in which they make a count of all the creatures, great and small, that are residents of the zoo. Some 750 species live at the zoo totalling more than 19,000 animals, meaning it’s quite a mammoth effort which takes almost a week to complete. The information gained is then shared with other zoos around the world via the Species360 database to aid in managing worldwide conservation breeding programmes for endangered animals. While some animals, like the Asiatic lions are easy to count, others are less so due to their tiny size (although ant colonies are simply counted as one). Among first-timers this year were two gibbons – Jimmy and Yoda – as well as 11 Humboldt penguin chicks, eight new Galapagos tortoises and a Hanuman langur baby (a species of leaf-eating monkey). For more on the zoo, see www.zsl.org. PICTURES: Top – Humboldt penguins; Below – Squirrel monkeys, llamas and an Asiatic lion.
This Week in London – Votes for Women! and, Thai orchids…
• A portrait slashed with a butcher’s cleaver by a suffragette in the National Portrait Gallery has gone back on display for the first time in more than 20 years. The portrait of gallery founder Thomas Carlyle, painted by Sir John Everett Millais, was attacked by Anne Hunt in July, 1914, after Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst was rearrested. Hunt later said that the painting would be “of added value and of great historical importance because it has been honoured by the attention of a Militant”. The portrait has gone on display to coincide with the opening of the Votes for Women! exhibition which features objects including a document issued by Scotland Yard to the gallery following another attack by suffragette – this time by Mary Richardson on a Velázquez painting, The Rokeby Venus (The Toilet of Venus) – in March, 1914, along with a sheet of identity photographs police gave to the gallery featuring images of women serving sentences in Holloway and Manchester prisons, a selection of the gallery’s collection of postcards produced by women’s suffrage organisations, portraits of the Pankhurst sisters and a rarely seen painting of women’s suffrage movement figures Millicent Garrett Fawcett and her husband Henry Fawcett by Ford Madox Ford (Millicent this year becomes the first woman to have a statue in Parliament Square). Votes for Women! – part of the gallery’s year-long Rebel Women season – can be seen in Room 33, Floor 1, until 13th May. Admission is free. There’s also a complementary showcase display highlighting Victorian pioneers of the women’s suffrage movement – Votes for Women: Pioneers – in Room 25. For more on the Rebel Women season, see www.npg.org.uk/rebelwomen. PICTURE: Emery Walker’s photograph of damage to the portrait of Thomas Carlyle by Sir John Everett Millais (1877) © National Portrait Gallery, London.
• Kew Gardens’ 23rd Orchids Festival – the first to be inspired by Thailand, home to 1,100 species of the plant – kicks off on Saturday. Held inside the Princess of Wales Conservatory, the festival features an orchid ‘palace’, a traditional Thai market boat and rice paddy and a special Thai cart on loan from the Royal Thai Embassy in London. The festival – which runs until 11th March – centres on a series of weekends featuring special food, live Thai music and talks and walks, the latter including drop-in guided walks of the floral displays. There’s also special activities at half term and a number of ‘after hours’ events which feature traditional dance performances, cooking tips, Thai-inspired cocktails and massage treatments. For more, see www.kew.org.
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This Week in London – Suffragette stories, and, recalling the “golden age” of ocean liners…
• Untold stories of suffragettes are uncovered in a new display at the Museum of London marking the centenary of women’s suffrage. Votes for Women tells the story of the likes of Emily ‘Kitty’ Willoughby Marshall – arrested six times and imprisoned three times in Holloway including once for throwing a potato at the resident of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill, Winefride Mary Rix – sentenced to two months hard labour for smashing a window at the War Office, and Janie Terrero – a suffragist since the age of 18 who was imprisoned in Holloway for four months for window smashing during which time she twice went on a hunger strike and was force-fed. The objects on display include Emmeline Pankhurst’s iconic hunger strike medal, a pendant presented to suffragette Louise Eates on her release from prison, and a silver necklace commemorating Willoughby Marshall’s three prison terms. There’s also a newly commissioned film installation highlighting the individual commitment and courage of the lesser known suffragette women. The exhibition opens tomorrow and there’s a special family-friendly festival this weekend featuring interactive performances, workshops and special events. The exhibition Votes for Women runs until 6th January next year. For more, including the full programme of events, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk.
• The golden age of ocean liners is recreated in a new exhibition opening at the V&A this Saturday. Ocean Liners: Speed & Style showcases more than 250 objects with highlights including a Cartier tiara recovered from the doomed Lusitania in 1915, a panel fragment from the Titanic‘s first class lounge, Goyard luggage owned by the Duke of Windsor dating from the 1940s, and Stanley Spencer’s painting The Riveters from his 1941 series Shipbuilding on the Clyde. Other artists, architects and designers whose work is featured in the display include Le Corbusier, Albert Gleizes, Charles Demuth and Eileen Gary. Among the “design stories” explored in the exhibition is that of Brunel’s Great Eastern along with Kronprinz Wilhelm, Titanic and its sister ship Olympic (all known for their Beaux-Arts interiors), the Art Deco Queen Mary, Normandie and the Modernist SS United States and QE2. The display also features objects related to some of the ocean liner’s most famous passengers as well as the couturiers who saw ocean travel as a means of promoting their designs. These include a Christian Dior suit worn by Marlene Dietrich as she arrived in new York aboard the Queen Mary in 1950, a Lucien Lelong gown worn for the maiden voyage of the Normandie in 1935, and Jeanne Lanvin’s Salambo dress, which, as one of the most important flapper dresses in the V&A collection, once belonged to wealthy American Emilie Grigsby who regularly travelled between the UK and New York aboard the Aquitania, Olympic and Lusitania in the 1910s and 1920s. Runs until 10th June. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.vam.ac.uk/oceanliners.
PICTURE: Titanic in dry dock, c1911, Getty_Images (Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum).
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LondonLife – New Elizabeth line roundels installed…
With just 11 months to go until the launch of London’s Elizabeth line, new purple roundels have been rolled out at stations including Tottenham Court Road (above), Farringdon and Custom House (below). They all feature the iconic Johnston typeface, first commissioned in 1913 and designed by Edward Johnston (with updates made in 2016). Construction of the Elizabeth line, being carried out by Crossrail Ltd, has now entered its final stages and the line will go live from December when 10 new state-of-the-art stations, all step-free, will open. The line, which will enable a journey from Paddington to Canary Wharf in just 17 minutes, will initially offer three services: from Paddington (Elizabeth line station) to Abbey Wood via central London; from Paddington (mainline station) to Heathrow (Terminals 2 & 3 and 4); and, from Liverpool Street (mainline station) to Shenfield. The full route, which will run out to Reading in the east, opens in 2019. For more information on the line, see Transport for London’s page here.
PICTURES: Courtesy of Crossrail: top – Monica Wells; below – James O Jenkins.
This Week in London – Charles I’s ‘Royal Collection’ on show; John Constable; and, 18th century satire…
• A landmark exhibition which reunites one of the most extraordinary art collections ever assembled opens in the main galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly this Saturday. Presented in partnership with the Royal Collection Trust, Charles I: King and Collector features about 150 of the most important of the works collected by King Charles I during his reign, spanning the period from 1600 to 1649. They are among 1,500 paintings and 500 sculptures he collected prior to his execution in 1649, after which the collection was offered for sale and dispersed across Europe. Many of the works were retrieved by King Charles II during the Restoration but others now form the core of collections at institutions such as the Musée du Louvre and the Museo Nacional del Prado. Among those on show in this exhibition, which includes more than 90 works borrowed from the Royal Collection, are several monumental portraits of the king and his family by Anthony van Dyck as well as the artist’s most celebrated portrait of the king, Charles I (‘Le Roi a la chasse’) (pictured), which returns to England for the first time since the 17th century. Other works include Peter Paul Rubens’ Minerva Protects Pax From Mars (‘Peace and War’) – this was commissioned by Charles and painted between 1629-30, Andrea Mantegna’s series, The Triumph of Caesar (c1484-92), and Titian’s Supper at Emmaus (c1530) while artists including Correggio, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein the Younger and Pieter Bruegel the Elder are also represented. The exhibition also shows off the celebrated Mortlake tapestries depicting Raphael’s Acts of the Apostles (c1631-40) and paintings, statuettes, miniatures and drawings once kept in the Cabinet at Whitehall Palace. Runs until 15th April. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.
• John Constable’s oil sketch, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, 1829–31, is one of 10 works which have gone on display at the Guildhall Art Gallery as part of its Victorian Landscapes exhibition. The painting takes centre-stage in the display in the gallery’s Temple Room; other works on show include John Brett’s Echoes of a Far-Off Storm (1890); Edward William Cooke’s Triassic Cliffs, Blue Anchor, North Somerset (1866), and Benjamin Williams Leader’s The Church at Betwys-y-Coed (1863). The paintings can be seen until early May. For more, follow this link.
• Eighteenth century satire portrayed on ceramics and prints is the subject of a new free display at the British Museum. Pots with Attitude: British Satire on Ceramics, 1760-1830 features some 80 objects, some of which have not been on show for decades, including mugs and jugs (which make up the bulk of the items on show) as well as items like a cotton handkerchief printed with the “Peterloo Massacre” of 1819 and a rather grisly folding fan showing hidden profiles of executed French sovereigns (1794). Other objects show off copies of prints by satirists such as James Gillray and Charles Williams, with one of the latter’s showing a colossal Napoleon about to cross the Channel into England but prevented from doing so by a pint-sized, sword-carrying John Bull, who has sliced off his toes and is telling him, ‘Paws off, Pompey’ – the comment a reference to a lap-dog known as Pompey the Little who was the hero of a popular novel at the time. The display can be seen in Room 90a, Prints and Drawings Gallery, until 13th March. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.
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This Week in London – Lumiere London, and London’s future imagined…
• 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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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…
• 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…
• 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…
• 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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LondonLife – Christmas at Kew…
Be dazzled by more than a million twinkling lights at the enchanted wonderland that is Kew Gardens this Christmas.
The Royal Botanic Gardens in London’s west have once again teamed up with entertainment promoter Raymond Gubbay Ltd to create a brand new illuminated trail. It starts with a path lit by hundreds of illuminated globes winding through trees festooned with silvery shards of light, snowflakes and stars and includes attractions such as an enormous glowing ‘Sledge Tree’ – made from more than 360 wooden Santa sledges, and a chorus of ‘Singing Trees’.
Other artistic installations along the trail include an ultraviolet walkway of thousands of continuously moving bubbles (created by Between Art and Technology (BAT) Studio), an enchanted promenade of hundreds of huge glowing peonies, giant grasses and coloured reeds (the work of French art studio TILT), and a host of giant trees, made from thousands of colourful, sparkling flowers complete with holographic petals (creative studio PITAYA) located along the Great Broad Walk Borders (included in the trail for the first time).
The fire garden has also returned – this year as a corridor of intricate pulsing fire sculptures and rotating lantern-lit Christmas trees – as has the Palm House finale in which the pond and glasshouse spring to life in an explosion of laser beams, jumping jets of light and kaleidoscopic projections playing across a giant water screen.
And, of course, there’s roasted chestnuts, mulled cider and Santa and his elves as well as a festive fairground and other food and drink. Open between 5pm and 10pm (timed entries between 5pm and 7.40pm), the after dark event runs until 1st January. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.kew.org.
PICTURES: Above – A sea of illuminated globes by the Palm House / Below (top to bottom) – 1. Giant glowing trees along The Great Broad Walk Borders; 2. Animated illuminations at Kew’s lake; 3. Giant peonies; 4.Palm House Grand Finale. ALL PHOTOGRAPHY © Jeff Eden/RBG Kew.
This Week in London – ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’…
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…
• 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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LondonLife – Hatton Garden inspires Elizabeth Line art…
The Hatton Garden diamond district is the inspiration behind a new work by artist Simon Periton which will appear inside the new Elizabeth Line station at Farringdon when it opens in December, 2018. A series of giant gems will appear to tumble down and along 
the walls of the station’s western ticket hall in what has been described as a “huge glazed frieze”. Each ‘gem’ will be created using special paint and then backlit so it shimmers and appears three dimensional. Periton is also creating a work of art for the station’s eastern ticket hall which will see exterior glazing being placed on three sides of the building featuring an intricate pattern reminiscent of the elaborate Victorian-era metalwork of the historic Smithfield Market found opposite. Says the artist: “The feel of each site is very different. The artwork for the Eastern Ticket Hall is visually more organic. Not only does the intricate pattern reflect the elaborate Victorian metalwork of Smithfield Market, it also references fragmented elements of the fauna and flora sold traditionally in the market. The design for this site is printed to emulate etched glass. The artwork design for the Western Ticket Hall is based on a large faceted diamond. A series of these giant gems cascade down and spin around the concourse, animating the space and echoing the movement of commuters. This design will be printed in bright coloured ceramic inks.” The artworks are just a couple of the many being incorporated into the new Elizabeth line stations under the Crossrail Art Programme. For more, see www.crossrail.co.uk/. PICTURES: Courtesy of Crossrail
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…
• 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…
• 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…
• 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 – Marking 20 years since Harry Potter; Paddington 2 at the Museum of London; and, Communist currencies…
• Twenty years after the publication of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone, a new exhibition is opening today at the British Library featuring centuries old treasures. Harry Potter: A History of Magic features Harry Potter-related objects as well as rare books, manuscripts and ‘magic’-related objects from across the world. Highlights include original artwork for the Harry Potter books, the 16th century Ripley Scroll – a six metre long scroll which purportedly describes how to make a philosopher’s stone, Chinese ‘oracle bones’ (the oldest dateable objects in the library’s collection), a celestial globe dating from 1693 which has been brought to life using augmented reality technology, the tombstone of Nicolas Flamel (an historical figure who also features in the first Harry Potter book), and a mermaid, allegedly caught in Japan in the 18th century. Specially designed panels inspired by the exhibition have gone on display at 20 public libraries across the UK to coincide with the opening. The exhibition can be seen at the King’s Cross institution until 28th February after which it will travel to the New York Historical Society for display late next year. Admission charge applies. A series of events accompanies the display. For more, see www.bl.uk. PICTURE: The Ripley Scroll, England, 16th century © British Library Board.
• Original costumes and props from the film Paddington 2, have gone on sh0w at the Museum of London ahead of the movie’s opening next month. Behind the Scenes of PADDINGTON 2 provides a close-up look at the film with highlights including a Paddington outfit, the London pop-up book that Paddington is trying to buy for his Aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday, and costume designer sketches. The display is accompanied by a series of events for half-term which include the chance to meet Paddington, some of the actors from the film and children’s author Katherine Woodfine as well as a talk and book reading with Michael Bond’s daughter, Karen Jankel. There’s also a chance to win four tickets to the world premiere of the film which opens on 10th November. The free display can be seen until 19th December. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/paddington.
• A new display exploring how money works and what it looks like under communism has opened at the British Museum. Drawing on the museum’s extensive collections, The currency of communism features a series of posters advertising financial products along with other objects – including a medal commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall – which explore concepts behind money in communist societies around the world, both historically and in the present day. The display has been made possible through an Art Fund grant which has enabled the museum’s curator of modern money, Thomas Hockenhull, to build a collection of numismatic material from socialist and socialist governed countries, some of which will be seen here. On view on Room 69a, the display can be seen until 18th March. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.
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