Tag: THE F National Gallery

See the Lucien Freud exhibition at the National Gallery London – and pay what you wish

Lucien Freud

Until 22 January 2023, Lucien Freud is awaiting your visit at the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square, bringing one of the most iconic artists’ work to your doorstep. And the best bit is, as a response to the cost-of-living crisis the National Gallery is to introduce its first Pay What You Wish scheme for an exhibition. On Friday evenings throughout the run of The Credit Suisse Exhibition – Lucian Freud: New Perspectives visitors will be able to pay as much or as little as they like in an excellent method of keeping art as accessible as ever. How can you see the Lucien Freud exhibition? For slots between 5.30pm and 9pm on Fridays, tickets for the exhibition, which opens on 1 October 2022, can be booked from today in advance online (nationalgallery.org.uk), on the phone or in person for a minimum payment of £1. Visitors will also have the opportunity to attend Gallery Friday Late talks and events and enjoy later opening hours at the Gallery’s shops, bars and restaurants.     This landmark retrospective is being staged by the National Gallery to mark the centenary of the birth of the major 20th-century artist (1922-2011.)  Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London, says: “The cost of an exhibition ticket can sometimes make it difficult to visit. While most of our temporary exhibitions are free, the Pay What You Wish scheme will enable practically anyone who wants to see the Freud centenary show to do so.”  For more info and to get planning, head to the National Gallery website Feature… Read More

National Gallery London: see Lucian Freud ‘New Perspectives’

Lucien Freud Reflection

Get your tickets into the world of Lucian Freud (same name; not the psychologist you’re thinking of), the artist celebrity has often overshadowed approaches to the artist’s work and the historical contexts in which it was made. This exhibition at London’s National Gallery at Trafalgar Square seeks to present new perspectives on Freud’s art, focusing on his tireless and ever-searching commitment to the medium of painting. Sponsored by Credit Suisse, the exhibition will give visitors the opportunity to see the astonishing range of work and the remarkable artistic development of one of Britain’s finest figurative painters. Think renowned pieces like HM Queen Elizabeth II  (2001, lent by Her Majesty The Queen from the Royal Collection), Girl with Roses (British Council Collection) from the 1940s; to Reflection with Two Children (Self-Portrait) (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) in the 1960s and right through to his famous late works, such as The Brigadier, 2003-04 (Private Collection.) As ever at the National Gallery in London, will be an exhibition to journey for and a deep dive into the mind and technical skill of one of surreal expressionists of history. Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, said: ’The Freud centenary exhibition at the National Gallery offers the opportunity to reconsider the artist’s achievement in the broader context of the tradition of European painting. He was a frequent visitor to the Gallery whose paintings challenged and inspired him.’ For more and to book tickets, head to the National Gallery website

Nicolaes Maes is the Dutch Master of the Golden Age coming to the National Gallery London

Nicolaes Maes National Gallery

From 22 February 2020, the work of Dutch Master Nicolaes Maes will grace the ground floor galleries of the National Gallery, right in the heart of London. It’ll make for what’s to be the first exhibition exclusively devoted to the man who died in 1693, taking on loans from private collections around the world. Made up of 35 pieces of work in paint and lead, the exhibition will take you on a journey through the life and learnings of a creative, considered one of the star pupils of renowned Dutch Golden Age Baroque artists, Rembrandt. What’s Maes known for? Maes was fond of works that depicted genre scenes, portraits, religious compositions and still lifes, many of which make up the bulk of next year’s exhibition. He was a pioneer of the theme of the eavesdropper; his carefully styled narratives often break the fourth wall, making the viewer a participant in the scene, as characters (often a maid) eavesdrop or point to illicit goings-on. To end the exhibition, it’ll focus on the period from 1673 when Maes settled in Amsterdam and abandoned domestic genre scenes to devote himself almost exclusively to portraits. A group of these lesser-known works will show how he brought a Van Dyckian elegance and swagger to the portraits.  The exhibition will run until 31 May 2020. See more from the National Gallery at the website.

Kids’ passion for art: National Gallery London puts on Take One Picture

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

What happens when you put kids in front of artwork? Well… generally nothing, but as it happens, not if they visit the National Gallery right in the middle of London. They’re putting on Take One Picture, a unique program to get kids into artwork in a particularly contemporary way: with their phones! Kids from around the ages of 1-6 are invited to focus on one of the paintings in the gallery and respond creatively to its themes and subject matter, historical context, or composition. Purposed to promote the visual arts across the curriculum and inspiring a lifelong love of art, this year the National Gallery chose An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) by Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ as the kids’ inspiration and it’s easy to see why. The work An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump depicts a travelling scientist demonstrating the formation of a vacuum by withdrawing air from a flask containing a white cockatoo. Air pumps were developed in the 17th century and were relatively familiar by Wright’s day. It was chosen for the wide range of subjects that are explored: the depiction of a scientific invention and its entertainment value, the human drama happening in a night-time domestic setting, and the references to the Age of Enlightenment. The bird will die if the demonstrator continues to deprive it of oxygen, and Wright (1734–1797) leaves us in doubt as to whether or not the cockatoo will be reprieved. The painting reveals a wide range of individual reactions,… Read More

What to see at the National Gallery of London this English summer

National Gallery London

If there’s one place you visit in London for any injection of art, timeless history and culture that has influence so much of what we around the world consider influential art, then the National Gallery in London is it. And this summer the gallery that sits at the pinnacle of art in the English capital is putting on exhibitions that celebrate the life, time and work or artists Gaugin in The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gaugin and Bartolome Bermejo in Master of the Spanish Renaissance. Until 26 January 2020 for Gaugin (which opens in October!) and 29 September 2019 for Bermejo, the Gallery is celebrating the life and times of both artists through their works, a testament to post-impressionist and Flemish renaissance art respectively. The Gaugin exhibition makes the first ever exhibition for the gallery, devoted to the portraits of Paul Gaugin spanning a whopping period from the mid-1880s to 1903, when he died. The exhibition features a collection of portraits of a sitter, which Gaugin had placed into suggestive contexts to help express meaning beyond their personalities. By bringing together a number of works of the same sitter for different collections, the exhibition lets you see how Gaugin interpreted a specific model in different media over time. Meanwhile for a shorter period, The National Gallery London will show works by Bermejo, the man hailed as the greatest Spanish artist of the second half of the fifteenth century. It’ll include some of his works like Madonna of Montserrat and Pieded Despla from the Barcelona Cathedral. They’ve… Read More

London’s National Gallery celebrates Sorolla Spanish Master of Light exhibition with new menus

Sorolla National Gallery 1

The National Dining Rooms and The National Café right in the middle of London are celebrating the Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light exhibition at The National Gallery with a special menu hailing all the way from Spain thanks to restauranteur, Oliver Peyton. It’s all going down from 18 March to 7 July, and has been inspired by the stunning work of Spanish painter, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastidas. Think tapas style starters of smoked ham, manchego croquettes with pimento aioli, for instance. Then you’d move onto the likes of hake fish in romesco sauce and almond olive dressing, vegetable paella with sprouting broccoli, asparagus, padron peppers and saffron. Dessert looks something like a bit of crema catalana or tarta de Santiago served with clotted cream and it all kicks off for £19 (about $40) for two courses or £24 ($50) for three. Complete with artwork by the artist themselves, comprised of vivid seascapes, garden views, and bathing scenes for which he is most renowned, the Sorolla exhibition features more than 60 works spanning Sorolla’s career. It – and the restaurants, obviously – are worth a visit. See more at the Peyton and Byrne website. Find them here: The National Dining Rooms Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN The National Café East Wing, The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN