'Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen' at The Courtauld Gallery

The latest exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery is a selection of 18 works by Munch from the KODE Art Museums in Bergen, Norway, that have never been seen before in this country. The last Munch exhibition I attended was a few years ago at the British Museum and it was full of despair and death but, from the images used for the publicity for the exhibition, I suspected this exhibition might be a bit different. And it was. There was colour and light, such as this 'Self Portrait in the Clinic' from 1909 when he was recovering from a breakdown.

One of the first paintings you see is 'Spring Day on Karl Johan' from 1890 when he was experimenting with Impressionism and this looks like he was influenced by a Seurat painting. This is one of the main boulevards in Oslo painted with small dashes of colour. Munch was still a young man when he painted it and trying to find his own approach to art but I think it's nice to know he was influenced early on by the colours and styles of the Impressionist masters. He might have even been happy when he painted it.

Another early painting that caught my eye was 'Morning' from 1884, distinctly showing his early influences. The overall composition and the delicate colours are very different from later works. A young woman is getting dressed in the morning, sitting on her bed and looking towards the window, one foot still bare. It's a gentle image, painted when he was only 20 years old.

I puzzled over 'Children Playing in the Street in Asgardstrand' from 1901-03. I don't know what the children are supposed to be doing but it looks like they're lying down while the girl looks out at the viewer. The notice beside the painting suggested the girl is on the cusp of moving from being a young child into adolescence. I don't really see where that is coming from but I can get the leaving innocence and childhood behind thing, growing up and no longer playing with her friends. One of Munch's regular themes was transition so maybe this was an early example of him finding his way. Still, the painting is light and airy and that's a good thing.

It was nice to see another side to Munch and see these paintings on show for the first time in this country. It was a pleasant surprise to see so many bright, colourful paintings. There were other paintings on show that are instantly recognisable as by Munch, using his regular themes and darker colours but I liked the brighter, lighter ones best. A final one, 'Youth' from 1908, a bather on the beach in northern Germany with the Baltic Sea in the background. 

'Walter Sickert' at Tate Britain

Tate currently has its first major exhibition of works by Sickert in 60 years at Tate Britain. I don't know much about him at all so this was a good way to find out. He had a long career, working from the 1880s to his death in 1942 so he lived and painted through the major art movements of the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. He worked in the studios of both Whistler and Degas and looks to have been particularly influenced by Degas, especially in the subject matter of his paintings. 

The first room of the exhibition is full of rather sombre self-portraits but I quite liked this self-portrait of Sickert as 'The Servant of Abraham' (1929) based on a photo of himself shown next to the painting. His palette for most of his career seems to have been rather dull and, apparently, Degas encouraged him to expand into richer colours.

I much prefer colour so noticed his 'Brighton Pierrots' (1915) straight away with its much richer palette and glowing colours. The costumes of the pierrots, the dusty pink suits, the colourful houses and empty deckchairs all combine to make this a colourful and mysterious painting. Degas had a fascination with music halls and cabarets and Sickert seems to have picked this up as well. Beside the pierrots is 'The Trapeze' (1920) with the vast expanse of canvas tent with the small figure of the trapeze artist about to jump and fly. I immediately thought of 'Miss La La' by Degas and thought this is Sickert's version of Miss La La.

Sickert seems to have had a fascination with Dieppe and Venice where he seems to have returned time and again to paint, as well as with Paris and London. There were quite a few cityscapes of those cities and a room full of the facades of cathedrals. I liked this one 'The Facade of St Jaques' (1902) with it's dramatic light effects as the sun hits the front of the cathedral leaving the street level in shade. I liked the detail of having a sign for a restaurant in the painting because, of course, wherever you go there is always a restaurant or cafe beside a cathedral. Sickert rarely painted the streets of London but I liked this one of the front windows of a drapers shop, 'Easter' (1928), named after the easter bonnets filling the shop window. 

Another painting that called to me from across the room was 'Bathers, Dieppe' (1902) with its vast expanse of sea and the people in their colourful bathing costumes. It reminded me of Sorolla's beach scenes with the excited waves and then I noticed there is no beach. Or sky. It's an odd composition in a way, seemingly focused solely on the middle ground. I like the sea and the many different colours in the sun and shadow as the waves gather and then crash on the shore. I couldn't help but wonder about the group in the black swimming costumes, presumably friends or workers on an outing, and wondered what they might've though about the men wading into the sea in their bright, stripy costumes (possibly the workers' bosses?). 

The final room of the exhibition was full of paintings Sickert did from photographs, including photos in newspapers. He painted a lovely 'Portrait of Degas in 1885' (1928) and painted famous people of the time from photos as well as significant events. These paintings were all in much brighter colours and the paint seems to have been thinned to provide a light covering on the canvas. Despite the brightness of the paintings, the one that touched me was 'The Miner' (1935-6) painted from a press cutting at the time which was displayed in a case nearby showing a miner kissing his wife as he returns to daylight after being on strike underground to shut the pit down. It looks grubby and drab and he carries a water jug under his right arm, other arm round his wife pulling her close. It's close-cropped and that emphasises the power of the image. 

And here is the painting of Degas.

'Carlo Crivelli: Shadows on the Sky' at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Carlo Crivelli isn't one of the big names of the renaissance and he rarely gets mentioned but I've long been fascinated by his paintings in the National Gallery in London. The National Gallery has a good selection of his works in the collection and I would've thought if anywhere held an exhibition about Crivelli it would be there since it has so many of his works. Instead, the National Gallery is supporting the Ikon Gallery to hold the exhibition and has loaned four paintings to it, including two from its storage that I've never seen on the walls of the National Gallery before. 

The first thing I noticed on going into the exhibition is that it's in a big white room with a divider in the middle, acres of white walls. I'm used to seeing Crivelli hung on the richly coloured walls of the National Gallery, not in all this whiteness. The paintings are very spread out which emphasises the plainness of the walls but it also helps to focus on the paintings themselves. Crivelli's paintings are always packed with details so we have the colourful, detailed paintings against the stark, plain white of the walls. An interesting experiment. 

The first few paintings you come to are relatively small and one of my favourites was the painting of Mary Magdalene from around 1491-94. The figure of the Magdalene is set in a niche, almost as if she was a statue, holding a jar of oil, her symbol since she washed Christ's feet. Her hair cascades freely down her back and she holds her cloak out of the way of her feet. And then we see one of Crivelli's trademarks, her foot slightly over the edge of the ground she stands on - he does this time again using feet or random fruit or vegetables, his little trick to emphasise the three dimensionality he was seeking. To add more interest he's painted the wall of the niche as cracked and crumbling, which probably represents something to him and whoever commissioned the painting. 

On the next wall is a gorgeous, small Virgin and Child from around 1480 in a lovely tabernacle style frame. And it is gorgeous with the swags of hanging fruit behind the Virgin's head (another Crivelli trademark) and the delicate robe she wears. Then you see the Child's face. His hair hangs in ringlets and he's clutching what looks like an apple. In the background on the left is a lush forest but, on the right, is a dead landscape and a single dead tree. There's a lot going on in this little painting with life and death going on in the background, the lushness of the fruit, the Virgin as queen of heaven in her decorated golden robe... but what's going on with the Child? Is the apple meant to be the fruit from the tree of knowledge and he's clutching original sin to himself, perhaps hinting that he'll free us from sin through his own life and death? There's a lot to consider here.

One of my favourites in the exhibition was the large Virgin and Child from 1482 on loan from the Vatican. The painting was recently restored by the Vatican and it looks gorgeous. The swag of fruit across the top (with rather over-sized grapes) and the Virgin's robe spilling over the edge of the plinth her throne sits on cover Crivelli's trademarks, then there's the delicate cloth of gold behind the throne and, of course, the detail and richness of the Virgin's robe. The Christ is a toddler now with a rather ornate hair style, standing in his mother's lap and, once again, holding the apple. His green tunic reflects the colours in his mother's robe.

And then you notice the tiny figure kneeling at the Virgin's feet. The figures' robe is a Franciscan habit but who is he? An image of St Francis? or perhaps he's the donor of this painting? It was quite common to include a small image of the donor in the painting earlier in the century but that was an old fashioned conceit by the time this was painted so there must be a reason for including him. 

The painting that provides the title for the exhibition is a painting of another Franciscan and this is 'The Vision of Blessed Gabriele' from around 1489 and on loan from the National Gallery. I don't know who Gabriele was but it's quite a striking painting. He's kneeling in prayer in a rural setting with a vision of the Virgin and Child high in the sky. As ever with Crivelli, it's the details I always look for: his wooden sandals are off, the detail of the rope around his waist, a bible is open on the ground, the pond with a duck and another bird, the people on the road in the distance, the flock of birds in the sky, all the tiny angels in the vision and is that a cave behind him? He has the spikey halo of one of the blessed.

Another painting on loan from the National Gallery is the very large 'The Annunciation with Saint Emidius' from 1486. Most paintings of the annunciation focus solely on the Virgin and on Gabriel, but this is more like a cityscape with the annunciation right up front but look at all the activity in the background. It's odd having the saint with his bishop's mitre and holding an image of the church named for him alongside Gabriel as the beam of light from God's hand streaks down to the Virgin (through a handy gap in the wall, you'll notice).

What are all those people doing in the background of what is normally a private scene? I suppose it would be odd to have an empty cityscape and they certainly help with the perspective, getting smaller the further away they are. The painting might not have a swag of fruit at the top but it does have a vegetable sticking out over the ledge at the bottom. The whole city is very ornate with every surface covered in details and even the sky has drifts of clouds and a flock of doves. It's an incredible painting.

There are nine Crivelli paintings on show in total with loans from the National Gallery, the Vatican, the V&A, the Wallace Collection and the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin. There's also a small 'installation' by Susan Collis - I'm not sure why but I was there for the Crivellis. It's strange that this is the first exhibition of Crivelli's work in the UK - I wonder why he's overlooked? Maybe he needs some high profile fans to bring more attention to his works. I'm very pleased I went to see this exhibition and it seems to be doing well given the number of people who were there with me on a Wednesday afternoon. The exhibition is free to enter.

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.

'The Making of Rodin' at Tate Modern

The big exhibition at the newly re-opened Tate Modern is all about Rodin, particularly his work in plaster. The Musee Rodin in Paris has loaned a lot of works to help show Rodin's process of making sculptures. There are sketches (often in watercolour), small models of much larger sculptures, many versions of body parts to practice getting hands, for example, just right, and even nude plaster statues to get the stance of a model just right before adding the clothes. There are some fascinating pieces here. It's not the biggest exhibition but is well worth seeing.

The first exhibit is 'The Age of Bronze' in a room of it's own. A willowy young man cast in bronze. It's a gorgeous statue but it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the exhibition and I suspect it's there to say 'this is what Rodin was capable of doing', with it's smooth, elegant lines and surfaces before moving on to the rougher plaster 'sketches'.

The next room is big and has a load of works on a central display to walk round in the one-way route so you get a chance to see the front and back of the statues. 'The Thinker' is, of course, the first thing you see, but I think my favourites were the 'sketches' of figures Rodin produced to try out his ideas. There's a rather portly 'Balzac' and a few studies for a naked 'St John the Baptist'. There was also a lovely small statue (small? maybe three feet tall?) of one of the figures in 'The Burghers of Calais', naked here even though he wears a full-body robe in the actual finished work. This was Rodin working out what the stance should look like and it's quite clear when you look at both the study and the finished work which character he was working on. It just wouldn't occur to me to do a naked study to work out how a clothed figure should look. I was most impressed.

Moving along and there is 'The Burghers of Calais' standing on the floor rather than raised up so a lot easier to see the details. There's a bronze cast of this statue outside Parliament so I'm familiar with it but it was fascinating to see this original version and walk round it peering at the details. The Burghers were six leaders of Calais in 1346-47 who surrendered to King Edward III to get him to spare the city. They expected to be executed but were spared. It's a great work and I wandered around it several times looking at the details. Look at those legs, the feet and hands, the way the clothes fall ... it suddenly all made sense why he would model the naked bodies before adding the clothes.

There are, of course, many more works to see at the exhibition but these are my highlights. The exhibition only opened a couple of weeks ago so there's plenty of time to see it yet and it's well worth a viewing.

'The Kiss' is also on display but outside the exhibition and it's great to be able to walk all the way round the work. They're definitely into a full-on snog.

'Artemisia' at the National Gallery

The first major exhibition of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi in the UK has just opened at the National Gallery in London and it's well worth visiting. She's not a terribly well known artist so hopefully this exhibition will change that and give her the credit she deserves. Born in 1593, her father was an artist and follower of Caravaggio and that influenced her own paintings. She was raped by an artist friend of her dad's who was successfully prosecuted and she is noted for her depictions of powerful women, occasionally cutting off mens' heads. 

She left Rome for Florence where she became the first woman admitted to the Accademia, lived in Venice and Naples, was commissioned by Charles I and spent time in London with her dad who died here and then she returned to Italy. She had children, had love affairs and enjoyed an international reputation as an artist at the time but that reputation diminished over the years and is only now being rediscovered.

'Artemisia' is in the exhibition suite in the Sainsbury Wing and is quite large and spread out. Most of her paintings are large and it doesn't take many to fill up the walls of each room. There are also a few original letters from her and her husband with the curly script you'd expect from the first half of the 1600s. You need to be masked to get into the National Gallery at the allotted time on your ticket, then head downstairs to the exhibition space and join a short queue to get into the exhibition. There's a free audioguide to the exhibition you can stream and listen to on your own device of choice if you want to. And then in you go to the exhibition.

Artemisia seems to have had a stock of subjects she painted and painted again, such as Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, sometimes with spouts of blood and other times with dribbles. Also Susanna and the Elders where the old men spy on the youthful Susanna and threaten to report her as whore unless she has sex with them. Susanna is definitely the victim of men in these paintings, trying to cover her nakedness from the lecherous old men.

It's difficult not to associate these paintings with her experience of being raped as a girl/young woman. There are also paintings of the death of Cleopatra and the asp, a powerful queen choosing death over slavery. There's a strong sense of morality, of nobility, in these paintings. Better to die in control of one's destiny than die as a slave. 

She used her own image as the basis for some of her paintings, such as her painting of Saint Catherine with her wheel symbol and holding the palm leaf of a martyr which is in the National Gallery collection and herself as a painter in the 'Allegory of Painting' in the Royal Collection. There's also a self-portrait of her as a lute player. I prefer the Saint Catherine painting since we see the face almost full on with a direct gaze, a confident woman knowing her fate and willing to face it without fear or shame.

It's well worth seeing this exhibition if you can, the first exhibition of her work in the UK. She led a colourful life and it's been interesting finding out more about her.

'London💜Dick' at Velorose Gallery

'London💜Dick' is the new exhibition by the Loved Collective and is open to view and hear at the Velorose Gallery just along from the Barbican. I saw the last Loved exhibition in Brixton a couple of years ago so it was good to see this updated version, especially when most galleries are still closed. This was my first exhibition since seeing the Titian at the National Gallery on 16 March and it felt good to be seeing real things on real walls again rather than through a computer screen.

It's a small exhibition, with about 15 works on display in the small Velorose gallery but it's good that it's open and showing new works. The publicly displayed images all have the titular genitals covered but if you open the gatefold 'doors' in the exhibition you see the fully naked men. That's a bit odd, particularly given the title of the exhibition, since there are plenty of naked men in art galleriess but it also creates a sense of surprise. What will I see if I open this?

Something I really like is the strapline to the exhibition: 'Heroic stories of passion and acceptance (and dick)'. That creates all sorts of images and possibilities, the struggles some people face to accept who they are and their body shape. These aren't idealised visions of men but men with a bit of weight, hairy, tattoos, in a wheelchair (because some people are), all looking at what 'ordinary' men are like in an honest way. We see the infinite variety of the human (male) body and there's no one size fits all, different shapes and different sizes. And, let's face it, we're all beautiful in our own ways.

The artist is Charlie Hunter and the other half of the collective is Mike Wyeld who creates soundscapes of the stories told by the subjects of the drawings and others who didn't want to be drawn. I really like the simplicity of the drawings, simple but powerful and very distinctive.

If you fancy it, you can send in your own art contributions to be part of the exhibition. Take a look at the website for details - I've sent in two pieces. Details here: http://www.velorose.com