Studio International

Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire
Studio International

Emily Spicer reviews Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire at the National Gallery, London, on view through October 7, 2018. Spicer writes that the show centers around Cole’s “The Course of Empire series, which charts the rise and fall of civilisation over five canvases – a cautionary tale of the dangers of imperial greed and corruption. These […]

Eugène Delacroix @ The Louvre
Studio International

Joe Lloyd reviews Eugène Delacroix at The Louvre on view through July 23, 2018. Lloyd observes that “the importance Delacroix placed on colour as a vehicle for meaning runs through the Fauvists, Matisse and Picasso and abstract expressionism, right through to much present-day art. To this is joined Delacroix’s painterliness. Even the most harmoniously composed […]

Murillo: The Self-Portraits
Studio International

Emily Spicer reviews Murillo: The Self-Portraits at the National Gallery, London, on view through May 21, 2018. Spicer begins: “At least 20 years passed between the Spanish artists Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-82) painting his first self-portrait and his second and, on the surface, they look strikingly similar. The artist is wearing black, has framed his […]

Rose Wylie @ the Serpentine Sackler Gallery
Studio International

Joe Lloyd reviews Rose Wylie: Quack Quack at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, on view through February 11, 2018. Lloyd writes: “There is another tension in Wylie’s work, between intentionality and spontaneity… Wylie’s work thrives on memory’s entropy, on the way we organise the floating odds and ends of our minds. Human, all too human, in […]

Impressionists in London @ Tate Britain
Studio International

Francesca Wade reviews Impressionists in London at Tate Britain, on view through May 7, 2018. Wade writes: “In 1904, 37 of [Claude Monet’s] pictures – splendidly evocative hazes of red and blue – were shown in Paris in an exhibition called Views of the Thames. Eight of these works form the centrepiece of this Tate exhibition, […]

Alex Katz: Interview
Studio International

Anna McNay interviews painter Alex Katz whose work is on view at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London through November 18, 2017. Katz remarks: “Everything is moving. There’s no reality, it’s moving. Reality is subject to fashion and so you get something where there’s no past tense, there’s no future tense, there’s only now. And I want […]

Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting
Studio International

Donald Stone reviews Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry, on view at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin through September 17, 2017 and the National Gallery of Art, Washington from October 22, 2017 – January 21, 2018. Stone writes: “The organisers of the latest exhibition … want us to see Vermeer […]

Fahrelnissa Zeid @ Tate Modern
Studio International

Emily Spicer reviews an exhibition of works by Fahrelnissa Zeid at Tate Modern, London, on view through October 8, 2017. Spicer writes that in Zeid’s painting Resolved Problems (1948), “[figuration] drops away entirely. This is a joyously coloured canvas of gestural shapes that seem to jostle in front of your eyes. Red is the dominant colour, a hot, […]

Wayne Thiebaud @ White Cube Mason’s Yard
Studio International

Matthew Rudman reviews Wayne Thiebaud: 1962 to 2017 at White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, on view through July 2, 2017. Rudman writes: “What this exhibition makes clear is not simply Thiebaud’s longevity, with works on show dating from 1962 to 2017, but the sustained quality, experimentation and sense of play in his output … Portraits […]

Lee Lozano: c 1962 @ Hauser & Wirth, London
Studio International

Joe Lloyd reviews Lee Lozano: c 1962 at Hauser & Wirth, London, on view through July 29, 2017. Lloyd writes: “Each piece is untitled and diminutive in size. In shape, they range from squares to frieze-like panels… By forcing one to scrutinise closely, the form draws one into Lozano’s domain while distancing it from the […]

Peter Dreher: Interview
Studio International

Angeria Rigamonti di Cutò interviews painter Peter Dreher on the occasion of his exhibition Day by Day, Good Day at Mayor Gallery, London, on view through June 2, 2017. Dreher comments: “… adherence to one motif and its repetition does not represent a limitation but rather a liberation. It allows me to concentrate on what […]

Joan Eardley: A Sense of Place
Studio International

Christiana Spens reviews Joan Eardley: A Sense of Place at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, on view through May 21, 2017. Spens writes: “By combining the freedom of abstract expressionism, along with the familiarity of local places, [Eardley] invoked a wild sublime in these Scottish scenes that remains unique and arresting… Eardley’s […]

Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms
Studio International

Natasha Kurchanova reviews Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 21 March – 23 July 2017.  Kurchanova writes: “The exhibition gives an insight into the development of modernism in Brazil, a country to which it was an extraneous mode of aesthetic language, developed under the influence of a […]

Constable and Brighton
Studio International

Anna McNay reviews Constable and Brighton at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, on view through October 8, 2017. McNay writes: “The exhibition is structured around three walks that Constable would regularly make: westwards towards Shoreham Bay, northwards towards Devil’s Dyke, and eastwards to the Chain Pier. Largely eschewing the town centre, he would systematically […]

Caroline Walker: Interview
Studio International

Emily Spicer interviews painter Caroline Walker. Walker comments: “My work definitely engages with that history of painting women, which has largely cast the male artist as the portrayer of the female realm. I suppose I’m revisiting that, but through a female gaze. And I’m interested in whether the knowledge that something has been painted by […]

Marsden Hartley’s Maine
Studio International

Jill Spalding reviews Marsden Hartley’s Maine at The Met Breuer, New York, on view through June 18, 2017. Spalding writes: “A curatorial triumph for how convincingly Hartley’s meditations on Maine present as defining his modernist vision, the show serves as successfully to broaden our understanding of modernism. These burning canvases are not a style, they […]

Michelangelo and Sebastiano
Studio International

Emily Spicer reviews Michelangelo and Sebastiano at the National Gallery, London, on view through June 25, 2017. Spicer writes: “For 25 years, give or take, Michelangelo and Sebastiano were close friends, a friendship apparently born from the former’s rivalry with Raphael. Michelangelo was godfather to one of Sebastiano’s children and when Sebastiano had a crisis […]

Rik Wouters: A Retrospective
Studio International

Julie Beckers reviews Rik Wouters: A Retrospective at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, on view through July 2, 2017. Beckers writes: “[Wouter’s] colourful work is characterised by authentic and touchingly simple depictions without hidden iconographical messages. … Wouters’ strive to develop a strong interest for light in his depictions succeeds in […]

Alexei Jawlensky @ Neue Galerie
Studio International

Natasha Kurchanova reviews Alexei Jawlensky at the Neue Galerie, New York, on view through May 29, 2017. Kurchanova writes: “Jawlensky was close to many of his well-known compatriots and colleagues who either migrated to Germany or resided there, including Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Paul Klee and Ferdinand Hodler. The influence of these artists becomes manifest […]

Vanessa Bell: 1879-1941
Studio International

Anna McNay reviews Vanessa Bell: 1879-1941 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, on view through June 4, 2017. McNay concludes: “[Bell’s] art and her life were inextricably intertwined: as her art was her life, so her life was her art. As [curator Ian A C ] Dejardin notes, in his preface to the exhibition catalogue: […]