Here’s the October 2015 edition
of the regular monthly reminder list of the exhibitions
at London museums & galleries closing soon.
If there any shows you have been meaning to get to and haven’t done so yet, be quick because the following are going, going, gone. I always try to tweet reminders about London exhibitions as they get close to closing, so follow the LAF Twitter if you would like warnings of exhibition closing dates!
Agnes Martin at Tate Modern
closing Sunday 11th October
This huge and excellent exhibition at Tate Modern is the first retrospective of Martin’s work since 1994. Covering the full breadth of her extraordinary output, this exhibition reveals Martin’s little known experiments and traces her development from biomorphic abstraction to her mesmerising grid and striped canvases. Highlight of the show is the room of twelve white canvasses pencilled with Martin’s signature lines and grids (pictured above) – brightly and whitely spectacular.
www.tate.org.uk
Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden at The Queen’s Gallery
closing Sunday 11th October
Whether a sacred sanctuary, a place for scientific study, a haven for the solitary thinker or a space for pure enjoyment and delight, gardens are where man and nature meet. Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden reveals the way in which gardens have been celebrated in art across four centuries. Bringing together paintings, botanical studies, drawings, books, manuscripts and decorative arts, the exhibition explores the changing character of the garden from the 16th to the early 20th century. It includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Maria Sibylla Merian and Carl Fabergé, and some of the earliest and rarest surviving depictions of gardens and plants.
www.royalcollection.org.uk/exhibitions
Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860 at Victoria & Albert Museum
closing Sunday 11th October
Mounted by the V&A as part of their India Festival, this exhibition about the pioneering 19th-century British photographer Captain Linnaeus Tripe features over 60 of his most striking views of Indian and Burmese landscape and architecture, taken between 1852-1860. Through these early photographs, Tripe explored the possibilities of this new medium, showcasing and documenting archaeological sites, monuments and landscapes, rarely seen in the West. Tripe creates an impression of the world around him, combining the keen eye of a surveyor with the sensibilities of an artist, while giving testimony to his emerging skills as photographer.
www.vam.ac.uk
Tiger, Mog and Pink Rabbit: A Judith Kerr Retrospective at The Jewish Museum
closing Wednesday 14th October
This exhibition at The Jewish Museum London celebrates the picture books of author Judith Kerr, beloved by children around the world – The Tiger who Came to Tea, and the Mog series. It also explores the background to Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, featuring drawings Judith made as a child refugee fleeing Nazi Germany. The exhibition showcases almost 80 years of original artwork and illustrations by one of Britain’s best loved authors. Lovely exhibition for all ages.
www.jewishmuseum.org.uk
26 pairs of eyes at The Foundling Museum
closing Sunday 25th October
26 writers, including former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion, have been paired with 26 objects from the Foundling Museum Collection and responded with 26 ‘sestudes’ – texts exactly 62 words long. These sestudes bring fresh perspectives to familiar objects and put those lesser-known in the spotlight.
The sestudes are displayed alongside the objects that inspired them, forming a trail of discovery through the Museum. These alternative stories for objects as diverse as the pencil that belonged to Hospital Secretary John Brownlow, along with George Frideric Handel’s will, invite visitors to look at the Museum’s Collections and the Foundling Hospital’s history through 26 pairs of eyes. You can read these sestudes, which are published daily, on the group’s blog www.26pairsofeyes.org.uk
www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk
Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World at Tate Britain
closing Sunday 25th October
This wide-ranging exhibition at Tate Britain is a long-overdue retrospective for Barbara Hepworth. It is right and good to see Barbara Hepworth, one of Britain’s greatest sculptors, having a big multi-room show in London (astonishingly, her first for nearly half a century) and this Tate exhibition brings together an astonishing number of her works across the decades of her long career before she died so horribly in a fire at her home in 1975. Be sure not to miss this important show of Hepworth’s work – a wonderful exhibition for one of our greats.
www.tate.org.uk
The London Art File 