Sophie Taeuber-Arp at Tate Modern

Sophie Taeuber-Arp isn't as well known an artist as she should be and Tate Modern has put on the first ever retrospective of her work in Britain and it is a joyous celebration of her life and work. Born in Switzerland in 1889, she was educated and went to art school in Munich, met her husband Hans Arp (also an artist), became part of the dada movement, exhibited with Kandinsky and Sonia Delaunay and sadly died in Switzerland in 1943. I hadn't heard of her before this exhibition but she is now firmly on my radar.

Something I immediately noticed was that her works were relatively small in size and were created for the 'average' home. They weren't created as big public works that could be bought by the rich or public institutions, these are works for me and you. They are also very colourful and largely abstract. Apparently Taeuber-Arp came to abstraction through dissecting textiles and many, at least the early works, are quite linear in composition. She also used a wide range of materials in her work, using graphite, crayons, gouache, watercolour, oils and other media like wool to make 'appliqué paintings'. 

As you'd expect from a dadaist she was involved in lots of different things within the movement and turned her hand to most things. She created puppets for the Swiss Marionette Theatre and a series of 'dada heads' like hat stands and she turned the wood herself. One of the 'heads' is a portrait of her husband. I loved the puppets and it would be fun to see them in action (I think there's a video in the exhibition but I missed it). 

As well as being an artist Taeuber-Arp was also an architect and designer and some of her furniture is on display, all modular and functional and could easily be in a furniture shop today. There's also a gorgeous rug hung on the wall that she designed and made and it looked very deep and rich. She used her rugs and tapestries as the basis for creating other designs and there's a cabinet full of her experimental watercolour designs based on the rug. I like the idea of riffing on a design, developing it for a different work. 

As I walked through the exhibition I noticed that the colour palette became deeper and richer before becoming very sparse as I came to her later works. The works became more angular and geometrical as she delved deeper into her own abstraction. Some of the later works were simple line drawings in graphite and/or ink from during the Second World War when she didn't have access to a studio or lots of materials. There's also a gorgeous landscape drawn entirely in graphite that shows what a great draughtswoman she was. 

Sadly, Sophie died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty stove as she sheltered from the war in Switzerland in 1943 at the age of 53. It's very sad that we don't have her more mature works - who knows what she might have created after the war? Her friend Sonia Delaunay 'discovered' black in her 60s - what would Sophie have discovered?

Sophie lived and created in one of the most artistically stimulating times - the first half of the 20th Century. Der Blaue Reiter were working in Munich when she was there and dada sprung into life when she was ready to create, just as with Sonia Delaunay. There's a lovely photo of Sophie and Sonia in beachwear that Sonia designed at the opening of the exhibition. Sophie exhibited over the years with Sonia and with Vassily Kandinsky so that's pretty good company to be in. She discovered her own form of abstraction and pursued it for the rest of her life. I assume she isn't more well-known partly because she died during the war so wasn't there to celebrate the peace and create more great works. I wonder how she would have responded to the Abstract Expressionists and their huge canvases.  

This really is a very good exhibition that provides a good selection of her works across her lifetime. When I was there it was busy with a steady stream of people but not crowded, and I liked that since I could linger over the details of paintings without feeling I was hogging them. It seems to have been an unexpected success since Tate has run out of catalogues and is having to get more reprinted despite it being open for another couple of months. I'll definitely go back to see it again after the school holidays to spend more time with this wonderful artist. I need to learn more.

Favourite Paintings: 'Two Satyrs' by Rubens

'Two Satyrs' by Peter Paul Rubens is in the Alte Pinakotek in Munich and I saw it when I visited the gallery to see the wonderful 'Florence' exhibition in January 2019. After seeing the exhibition I went for a cuppa and a cake in the cafe and thought I may as well see the gallery's collection. I expected it to be like any provincial museum anywhere but I was quickly disabused of that misconception. It has an astonishing collection with loads of great paintings including 'Two Satyrs' by Rubens.

The painting may be called 'Two Satyrs' but there's really only one satyr here and he's the one looking right at you. There's something about that look that says he's already had his fun and now he wants a glass of wine, but then he sees you and you're the focus of his attention. And you know what? He'll have his way with you. He will. That's what satyrs do.

I have no idea why Rubens did this painting, why it was commissioned, how he found the model, what it's meant to represent, and I don't care. It's about nature and about sex, about passion and lust, about giving in to those primitive urges that make us who we are, about stripping back the trappings of civilisation and presenting the primitive us. It's you and me.

Favourite Paintings: Sketch 3 for 'Composition VII' by Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky is one of the great painters of the early 20th Century who went on an astonishing journey from representative painting into the far reaches of abstraction in a very short time. He was one of the founders of Der Blaue Reiter movement in Munich and that was the launchpad for his journey via colour theories, manifestos and intellectual treatises. There was a rationale behind much of what he painted and a lot of sheer joy in the use of colours and dynamic shapes.

One of my favourite paintings is a sketch for 'Composition VII' that hangs in the Lenbachhaus in Munich. Up on the second floor there is a large room full of paintings by Kandinsky and I couldn't help but grin widely when I walked into it for the first time, delighted at being surrounded by so much colour. There are two sketches from 1913 for 'Composition VII' side by side on the wall, Sketch 2 and Sketch 3, similar in some respects but different in others, and the one I've chosen is Sketch 3 (above).

Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866 and gave up teaching to study art when he was 30, later moving to Munich where developed his art and began a friendship with Paul Klee. He returned to Russia during the First World War and the early years of soviet Russia but returned to Germany in 1921 to teach at the Bauhaus. The Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933 and Kandinsky moved to Paris where he lived until he died in 1944.

The Lenbachhaus has both sketches hung side by side in it's Kandinsky room. This is Sketch 2, very similar to Sketch 3 but with subtle differences. I spent quite a while looking at both, comparing details and looking for differences. There is a bit more detail in Sketch 3 and that means more colours and shapes and that's probably why I like it slightly more. I respond to the painting by being absorbed into the colours and the swirling movement, an emotional response rather than anything else. Just look into it and lose yourself.

My favourite image of Mr Kandinsky is of him in his allotment leaning on a spade, wearing shorts and with a cigarette in his mouth. I saw it a great exhibition about paintings of flowers and gardens at the Royal Academy a few years ago. It's such an unusual image of a very cerebral artist that it really sticks in the memory. Here again is Sketch 3 for 'Composition VII'. Enjoy.

'Vienna 1934 - Munich 1938' at the Rose Theatre, Kingston

On Saturday we went to see the third and final performance of a play written and directed by Vanessa Redgrave at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. It was billed as 'a work in progress' so we knew this wasn't finished product by any means, it was an acted reading to try out the piece in front of an audience. Vanessa came on at the start to begin chatting to the audience, introduce the piece and give us some background to it, to the family friends featured in the work and some of her own memories of the war when she was a child.

The play's theme is the rise of fascism in Europe and the nazis in Germany in particular. There's a lot going on in the play - and I think that is one of it's problems, it needs to be simplified - but I thought of act one as being about Stephen Spender, act two about her dad Michael Redgrave being gay, and act three showing how fascism spread to Italy and a long speech delivered by Thomas Mann after he left Germany (her dad was a fan of Mann).

Although it didn't really hang together as a play there were some fascinating insights into the characters and the thinking at the time. It was all based on journals, news reports, diaries and autobiographies of the people involved, often with personal photos of them projected on the back of the stage. This is clearly a labour of love and Vanessa has put a lot of work into it.

In the evening there was an interview with Vanessa and a Q&A which we also attended and it was lovely to just hear her talk and reminisce. At one point there was a short film about her from the late '60s/early '70s showing us radical firebrand Vanessa marching under banners, being chased by the police and with Tariq Ali. It was an extract from a film her husband pulled together for her 80th birthday. The most pertinent piece of the segment was when she went up to receive her Oscar in 1978 and she reiterated her dedication to fighting anti-semitism and fascism. That's what the play had been all about. All these years later and she's true to her word. Well done Vanessa,

The Alte Pinakothek in Munich

I visited the Alte Pinakothek in Munich to see its great 'Florence' exhibition so, while I was there, I needed to look round its collection, up the long, long staircase to the first floor. It's Florentine Renaissance paintings were downstairs in the exhibition so I was expecting gaps in the collection but it was still surprisingly good and the rooms were mainly surprisingly empty of visitors - I was the only one in some rooms - since everyone was downstairs in the crowded exhibition.

The first few rooms were interesting enough with large early northern paintings, all rather similar in style and content. But it pays to keep your eyes peeled since I found this lovely little painting of the 'Tower of Babel' by Lucas van Valkenborch, a copy of the painting by van Eyck. I quite like the idea of copies being in museums in their own right as works of art. It's very small and easily missed.  Further along were large paintings of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, also copies of van Eyck, this time from panels in the Ghent Altarpiece. They were really good, almost life-sized and quite jewel-like to see (my photo doesn't do them justice).  They were painted by M van Coxie in the mid-1500s.

Keep walking and you'll find paintings by Lucas Cranach, quite a few by Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and others - it's almost a who's who of northern Renaissance painters. The northern painters used oil to mix their paints well before the Italian painters and their paints still glow with colour and life as they strove for ever greater realism and accuracy in their paintings. Here's a rather lovely 'Adoration of the Magi' scene by van der Weyden. There are many great paintings from the northern Renaissance and it was difficult to choose just one and I picked this for the colours. It was painted in 1455 and it's a tribute to him and his workshop that the colours remain so vibrant.

Then you come across one of the most wonderful paintings in the collection, a self-portrait by Albrecht Durer, resplendent in his expensive coat and his carefully coiffed ringlets. What a dandy and what a handsome man he was. My photograph is awful and has caught too much light but trust me, this is a beautiful painting and one of the highlights of the collection. By any standards, Durer was a great painter and a great draughtsman and he did this painting when he was only 28. To give it its full title, this is 'Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe' from 1500. It's inscribed with the words in Latin, "I, Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg, portrayed myself in appropriate colours aged twenty-eight years". Is this a tribute to overwhelming vanity or is this an advert that says, 'give me a commission and this is what you'll get from me'. I suspect the latter. It really is an astonishing painting.

Moving forward to the end of the 1500s we come across loads of astonishing paintings by Rubens. Painting after painting - he was obviously a favourite of whoever developed the collection. I really need to do some work on Rubens one of these days.

There's a great painting of the 'Drunken Silenus' (there's a different version in the National Gallery in London which I prefer), a portrait of Rubens and his wife as a wedding portrait (and they made a handsome couple indeed), but the painting that stopped me in my tracks was 'The Death of Seneca'. It's an astonishing painting in which the teacher of stoicism accepts his fate and commits suicide. The body is based on a classical statue Rubens drew in Rome and the head and face are based on a bust of Seneca. I was browsing round the paintings, this one's a Rubens, that one's a Rubens and then I saw this and stopped dead to gaze at it. What a powerful painting, almost life-sized and very difficult to ignore. A moment in time captured by Rubens forever in incredible detail.

Another painting that stopped my perambulations was 'Two Satyrs'. Just look at that satyr in the front and tell me he's a saint in disguise. No, *that* satyr understands getting drunk and rutting with whoever is around and will enjoy it immensely. From the look of him he's just been very naughty and plans to be naughty again quite soon.

But let's not forget that Rubens is also justly famous for his religion works and this crucifixion caught my eye. Just look at those arms being stretched and pulled down by the weight of the body, putting more pressure on the nailed feet. A very simple and very effective composition to meditate on.

There are, of course, many more great paintings than I can cover in this short blog about the museum, but I'm pleased I took the time to explore it. I was visiting to see the 'Florence' exhibition (one of the best I've seen in a long time) and I was almost expecting the collection to be rather provincial with the truly great works being in the Gemaldegallerie in Berlin, but I was wrong. There are more than enough great works to keep any art lover happy in the Munich Alte Pinakothek. I hope to visit again one day.

And then down, down, down the stairs to the ground floor...

Der Blaue Reiter at the Lenbachhaus, Munich

A trip to Munich wouldn't be complete without a visit to the yellow Lenbachhaus to see the fabulous collection of works by the Blue Rider group of artists. This is where the group formed in the early years of the 20th Century and the collection really is quite extraordinary in its scope. The ground floor is where the exhibitions are, the first floor is for contemporary art, but the prize is on the second floor, so just keep walking up those steps, where you're confronted with more colour than exists in the world - Der Blaue Rieter!

The first room at the top of the main stairs is a collection of early paintings by Kandinsky and Gabrielle Munter (his first wife) and I was surprised at how figurative they were. I shouldn't have been since everyone has to start somewhere, but I was. The paintings are small and jewell-like and I loved the almost Impressionistic landscapes he completed in this period, with vibrant colour as well as exploring the make up of the landscape in shapes.

The largest room has a collection of Kandinsky paintings grouped together and what a riot of colour they present. What is it about colour and shape that can bring joy and a smile to the face? It made me wonder what an astonishing journey those artists took, moving from figurative works to abstraction in such a short time. What was the thought process behind that journey and how did it start? For some artists it was an intellectual journey and for others it was emotion and the emotional intensity colour can produce when used in different ways.

These paintings are both sketches for 'Composition VII' and I'd be delighted to have either on my living room wall.

Walking round the rooms my eye spied some sparkling colours on the wall through a doorway and, like a magpie, I headed straight for it. It's a small painting by Richard Delaunay in 1914 called 'Window Overlooking The City' (there's a similar painting in the Tate collection in London). You need to look at it properly and take your time so start seeing the shapes of buildings hidden amongst the colours, with a church steeple and other buildings gradually becoming clear. I'm a great fan of Sonia Delaunay (his wife) so it was delightful to find this painting.

There was also a small moment of joy to see 'Blue Horse' by Franz Marc, one of the iconic symbols of the Blue Rider painters from one of the founders of the group. It was larger than I expected it to be but he's a quite majestic beast in his uniquely blue way.

There's a lovely small collections of paintings by Paul Klee from different stages of his career and I particularly liked 'The Rose Garden' and 'The Wild Man'. They're both small paintings. 'The Rose Garden' was painted in 1920 and is made of shapes in different shades of creams and reds, sometimes moving to purples, and, put those shapes together and you see a small village overplayed with small, round roses. It's a very complicated painting and must have been quite difficult to create. It works well as a small painting and the choice of frame is quite inspired.

'The Wild Man' from 1922 is a very different painting, again quite small and quite beautiful in its own way. Multiple arms and legs, horns and direction arrows, wild hair and beard, it's an altogether strange painting, a depiction of a dream or vision and clearly quite wild.

There are more wonderful paintings by Mr Klee on display and part of me wondered whether there were any more - and how many - were in safe storage? Klee lived in Munich at the same time as Kandinsky so it's certainly possible.

The Blue Rider collection is extensive and includes paintings by artists who's work I haven't seen before, including a self-portrait by Marianne von Werefkin from 1910. I looked at this painting for a few minutes and couldn't decide if she was a scary lady or not - the red eyes and direct gaze are very confusing. What is she trying to convey through this direct and very colourful painting? Your guess is as good as mine and just as valid. The long neck and thin face, red hat with it's flower at the brow, the red lips and eyes and the blue-green background - what does this say to you. I think I need to try and find a photo of her - I suspect she was quite beautiful and quite driven with her art. I need to do some research.

I was very conscious that I was wandering round this astonishing collection of works and the gallery was almost empty - it wasn't that unusual to be the only person in a room. In a sense that was great since I could enjoy the space and the works, but why aren't people looking at this great art?

Walk on through the rooms and I found yet more paintings by Kandinsky and Klee as well as more works by artists unknown to me, all working in the Blue Rider ethos and taking it forward.

A final painting I'd like to highlight is 'Portrait of the Dancer Alexander Sacharoff' by Alexej Jawlensky from 1909. What a dramatic image with all that red on the body and the black hair, the narrow face and that smile. No 'Mona Lisa' is this. At first I thought it was a painting of a woman but no, this is an athletic man painted in a very gender-neutral manner. The direct gaze and that oddly twisted smile are very noticeable. Is he thinking, 'Yes, got you!' in presenting himself like this for his portrait session? It's the work of an artist painting an artist in a different field, someone who knows how to manipulate and use his body. It's not what I consider to be a beautiful painting but it's certainly very striking.

There are many, many more paintings on display by a much greater range of artists than I cover in this blog in the Lenbachhaus. If you go to Munich then you need to make time to see the collection, it's well worth it and quite an astonishing collection it is. The Lenbachhaus also has a surprisingly large bookshop on the ground floor. If you want to see more Blue Rider works then head on over to the Pinakothek der Moderne for yet more Kandinskys and Klees as well as others. Munich holds a unique place in the history of Der Blaue Reiter and it's only right that it holds such great works.

Photos are by me - sorry they're a bit wonky!

'Florence' exhibition at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich

The big exhibition in the world of early Renaissance art at the moment is 'Florence and its Painters' at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The National Gallery can make a claim to that title with its Bellini and Mantegna exhibition but the Pinakothek wins for the sheer number of extraordinary exhibits and the range of artists represented. Sub-titled 'From Giotto to Leonardo' provides the scope of the artists featured in the exhibition and there are paintings, statues, drawings, books and reconstructed altarpieces. There is a record number of works by Fra Angelico with 11 paintings and three drawings, panels by Giotto, paintings and drawings by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his brother Davide, Donatello, works by Fra Filippo Lippi and by Filipino Lippi, Botticelli, Verrocchio and Leondardo and a host of other Florentine artists. The range of exhibits is quite astonishing with excellent labels and explanatory notes in German and English.

The earliest works are a mere 700 years old and are three small panels by Giotto: the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and Christ saving the souls from Limbo (with Adam and Eve at the front of the queue to get out of Limbo). I'm always astonished that small paintings that old have somehow managed to survive over the centuries and retain much of their colour - that is a great tribute to artistry of the masters' workshops and the skills of the craftsmen who mixed the paints for their masters, prepared the panels or cleaned the brushes. We'll never know their names but an artist of Giotto's stature had a good sized workshop to help him in his endeavours. The downside to seeing these panels is that they're displayed in what is effectively a corridor which is busy so there's not the comfort or convenience to really look at them undisturbed.

Also in the corridor are a group of six paintings by Agnolo Gaddi, two large life-sized paintings of St Nicholas of Bari and St Julian. The more interesting is St Nicholas, the forefather of Father Christmas and Santa Claus. Nicholas gave three bags of gold anonymously to the three daughters of his neighbour to provide them with a dowry and prevent their father selling them into prostitution. That was his first kindly act on his long journey into sainthood. Isn't it odd how stories start? The other small panel shows St Nicholas saving a ship at sea during a storm.

Various artists at the time and later tackled the stories around St Nicholas (there is a panel Fra Angelico in the Vatican Museums with the same story of saving a ship) but I quite liked this version by Gaddi and it works well in the context of the exhibition - Giotto worked at the start of the 1300s and Gaddi towards the end of the century, so he makes a nice springboard into the works from the 1400s which make up the majority of the exhibition.

The next room is full of the wonders of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi as well as others, roughly contemporary but with very different approaches to life and art. Despite being a friar Filippo fathered his son, Filipino Lippi, on a Dominican nun whose name we don't know. That doesn't mean he hasn't created some wonderful art.

The first painting in the room is the gorgeous Virgin & Child with it's rich cloth of gold background partially obscuring the Roman columns of the room within while the Virgin looks at her child serenely and the child offers the viewer a blessing. I've loved this painting since I first saw it at an exhibition in Paris in 2011, the gorgeous rich blues and reds of the Virgin's clothes and the passive, almost glowing child, gazing out at the viewer. It really is a wonder. The other paintings and drawings by Fra Angelico are arranged around a reproduction of the former high altarpiece at San Marco in Florence and are included elsewhere in this blog.

A really nice touch is that there is also a small panel by Benozzo Gozzoli near the Fra's paintings - Gozzoli was a pupil and assistant to the Fra who became a master in his own right and he painted the walls of the private chapel of the Medicis in their palace in Florence. On the opposite wall is a small Annunciation painting by Zenobi Strozzi who was also thought to have worked in the workshop of Fra Angelico (although with less documented proof than with Gozzoli). Here's Gozzoli's small predella panel of 'St Zenobius Resuscitating a Dead Child'.

Moving round the room you come to a lovely, delicate 'Annunciation' by Fra Filippo Lippi with the angel Gabriel kneeling before the Virgin while, up in the top left-hand corner we see God the Father channelling his energies through a dove to represent the Holy Spirit and straight down to the Virgin, the moment of conception. Gabriel holds the stem of a lily for purity and the Virigin has just got up from reading a book. Look at the detail of the house and garden, with Filippo practicing his skills at the new-fangled thing called perspective. It's quite a large painting and is dated at around 1444 so other painters had already made inroads into naturalism and perspective. Filippo doesn't sound like someone who followed 'the rules' and his addition of God to the scene and the setting in a well-to-do house would probably have been quite dramatic at the time.

Further round the room you find three paintings of the Virgin and Child by Fra Filippo Lippi from different periods in his career. Two are hung on the walls and one is in a glass case so you can see the drawing of a face on the back of the painting. The earliest painting uses the cloth of gold motif as a screen behind the Virgin while the mid-period painting has a landscape, an emerging skill for artists at the time. The third one uses a conch shell as the background, showing that classical Roman influences were taking hold.

The main room is full of treasures, with a painting of the Virgin & Child by Leonardo da Vinci almost hidden amongst the wealth or wonderful art. There are drawings by Pollaiuolo, bronzes by Donatello, paintings by Filipino Lippi (the son of Lippi senior), Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, Botticini, Domenico and Davide Ghirlandaio, Fra Bartolomeo and others. I mean, wow! It's not quite like being in the Uffizi but this is pretty close. I suppose the only real omission was anything by Michelangelo but you can't have everything and I suppose he really belongs to the 1500s. It was actually quite exciting wandering around this large room and finding wonder after wonder with no idea what you might stumble upon next.

Another reconstructed altar was that of Santa Maria Novella in Florence with the large painted altarpiece and two side panels by Domenico Ghirlandaio. I've marvelled at his frescos in that church and was delighted to see a rough drawing of one scene in the frescos showing the birth of the Virgin, but I'd never seen the large, main painting before, showing the Virgin and Child enthroned with saints and angels.

Here we see Saints Dominic, Michael, John the Baptist and Thomas below the Virgin and Child, St Dominic since Santa Maria Novella was and is a Dominican church. Santa Maria Novella is one of the great churches of Florence and it's a delight to see what would've been behind the high altar all those years ago.

A bit further into the exhibition, in the section covering the rise of portraiture in Florence (influenced by the great paintings of the Northern Renaissance) are two paintings of young ladies, one by Davide Ghirlandaio and one by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The brothers worked together in Domenico's workshop. I've only ever seen paintings by Davide in the Academia in Florence and I wasn't all that impressed so it was really nice to see these two small portraits side by side and not be able to tell who painted which. Clearly, there's more to Davide to explore.

The last painting in the exhibition (or, at least, the last big one in the final room) is a strangely surprising 'Lamentation" by Botticelli that has been restored especially for this exhibition. It's a big, almost life-sized painting with colours that glow (my photo doesn't do it justice).

There's none of the frivolity or playfulness of his earlier paintings, this is full-on religious, serious art.  Look at that composition, with everyone at an angle other than St Paul who stands upright, representing the true church. The thing that really caught my eye was the detail of grass curling around the toes and drapery, individual blades of grass, not just generic green foreground. And the body of the dead Christ almost glowing against the black of the Virgin's cloak. This is a very clever piece of art with a very serious subject for an altarpiece. Earlier in the exhibition we see Botticelli's 'Adoration of the Magi' which is a very different work, with his fops and dandies showing off their clothes and tights to best effect. This is most definitely a later piece by a man who's lived, loved and experienced pain.

I was really blown away by this exhibition. Such a great concept, such great works of art and something that must've taken years to put together, getting agreements to the loans and the conditions around the loans. I suspect something like 3-5 years has gone into planning and delivering this exhibition and I must congratulate everyone involved. It really is astonishing. Now that the Alte Pinakothek is on my radar for exhibitions I'll be keeping a watchful eye on whatever it does next. Thank you.

And, just because I can, here's the lovely 'Annunciation' by Zenobi Strozzi with Gabriel dressed in Fra Angelico pink.

Fra Angelico in 'Florence' at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The big exhibition in the world of early Renaissance art at the moment is 'Florence' at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. In particular, the exhibition boasts 11 paintings by Fra Angelico and three drawings. Most of the paintings are small predella panels but there is also the richly coloured 'Virgin and Child' that greets you at the entrance to the room that holds the collection of Fra Angelico works (as well as works by other masters).

This Virgin and Child is a late work from about 1445/50 and the Fra is at the peak of his considerable powers. The delicacy and detail of the painting, the Christ Child gazing out at the viewer offering a blessing and the serenity of the Virgin gazing at her son make this a very contemplative piece. The Virgin's halo includes the words 'Ave Maria' and the baby's halo includes the cross of the resurrection - even as a baby he was destined to die and be resurrected. The Child is also a source of light in the painting, almost radiant against the deep blues and reds of the Virgin's clothes.

A sign that this is a late painting is that the traditional cloth of gold behind the Virgin (the Fra did many paintings using this approach) does not fill the background but it is drawn back to reveal the classical columns of a Roman chamber - the influence of the ancients is starting to be felt and reflected in art. This painting was the centrepiece of the Fra Angelico exhibition at Musee Jacquemart-Andre in Paris in 2011.

The predella paintings are displayed as a reconstructed altarpiece to display them as they would have originally been seen. The photo was taken in a lucky rare moment when the crowds parted in front of the predella. This was at the high altar of San Marco in Florence and the main painting is in the museum at San Marco but there's a black and white copy of the painting on display to give the predella paintings their context. Six of the seven panels along the front of the altarpiece have been brought together from around the world (including paintings loaned from Dublin and Washington) and the two paintings that were on the sides of the altarpiece are also on display. The panels are slightly larger than A4 size, but that'll give you an idea of the size. These paintings tell the stories of the lives of Saints Cosmas and Damian, the doctor saints and patrons of the Medici family (Medici means 'doctor'), and their three brothers. The saints were quite popular at that time in Florence due to the Medicis and, for a time, they kept popping up in paintings.

In order, from left to right, we have 'The Healing of Palladia' (left side painting)

'Saints Cosmas and Damian and Their Brothers before the Proconsul Lysius'

'Saints Cosmas and Damian and Their Brothers are hurled into the sea and saved by an Angel; They liberate Lysius from Demons'

'Saints Cosmas and Damian and Their Brothers Surviving the Stake'

'The Entombment of Christ'

'Saints Cosmas and Damian and Their Brothers are Crucified, Stoned and Pierced with Arrows'

'The Funeral of Saints Cosmas and Damian and Their Brothers'

 'The Dream of Saint Justinian' (right side painting).

You need know the tales of the saints to fully understand what's going on in these paintings but they are very narrative and easy to follow. It's sometimes the details that are the most interesting in the paintings, such as seeing the brothers being hurled into the sea as punishment in the background of the painting, with the foreground seeing the brothers getting rid of demons - why did the Fra focus on that part of the story rather than the brothers being saved by an angel? And the very graphic way that the killing flames at the stake burn the captors rather than the brothers, all down to divine intervention. I also really like the 'Entombment' which, in context, sits directly below a small Crucifixion scene in the main altarpiece, nicely continuing that story.

The two final paintings are an annunciators angel and the Virgin, small paintings with a gold background, both early works and likely to be from the early 1420s. They were probably part of an altarpiece back then but it's not known which one. Altarpieces were often broken up and elements sold as paintings over the years, particularly during and after the Napoleonic Wars, so it's not that unusual to have parts of altarpieces framed separately and sold to raise funds for the church or monastery. That's also how paintings have ended up all over the world and bringing them together again in exhibitions like this is a great attraction.

As well as the paintings, there are also three drawings, a delicate crucifixion attributed to Fra Angelico and two others attributed to him and his workshop. They're all quite small drawings in various media. The thing that really stands out is the use of red ink for blood and for the cross of the resurrection in the halo - even while dying it's a sign that Christ will be resurrected.

The other two drawings are on different sides of the same piece of paper. One is a portrait of a cleric and the other sheet of paper holds three small drawings of St Lawrence, a woman holding a child and a young man with clasped hands. I don't know if these were simply practice drawings or meant as sketches to use at a later date in a painting. The woman and child could easily be the basis of a Virgin and Child painting at some point. The man with clasped hands reminds me of some of the figures in the frescoes in the Nicotine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, but who knows?

It was a great thrill to see so many works by Fra Angelico brought together in one room of the 'Florence' exhibition, alongside works by other masters. Having 14 works by the Fra in a single exhibition is an astonishing number and it's amazing that these delicate, small paintings and drawings have survived in such good condition over the past 600 years. The Alte Pinakothek is lucky to have quite a few of these works in its own collection so, when the exhibition closes, they'll still be available to see upstairs in the main galleries. Thank you very much Pinakotheken for putting on such a great exhibition with so many works by Fra Angelico. Well done!