Abstract Expressionism Exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts

Exploring an unparalleled period in American art, this long awaited Abstract Expressionism exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts reveals the full breadth of a movement that will forever be associated with the boundless creative energy of 1950s New York.

In the “age of anxiety” surrounding the Second World War and the years of free jazz and Beat poetry, artists like Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning broke from accepted conventions to unleash a new confidence in painting. Often monumental in scale, their works are at times intense, spontaneous and deeply expressive. At others they are more contemplative, presenting large fields of colour that border on the sublime. These radical creations redefined the nature of painting, and were intended not simply to be admired from a distance but as two-way encounters between artist and viewer. It was a watershed moment in the evolution of 20th-century art, yet, remarkably, there has been no major survey of the movement since 1959.

This autumn the Royal Academy brings together some of the most celebrated art of the past century, offering the chance to experience the powerful collective impact of Pollock, Rothko, Still, de Kooning, Newman, Kline, Smith and Gorky as their works dominate our galleries with their scale and vitality. They will also acknowledge the lesser-known figures who contributed to the development of the movement. Finally, they will include photography and sculpture to complete an ambitious re-evaluation of the phenomenon that saw New York take over from Paris as the capital of the art world. The Abstract Expressionism exhibition at the Royal Academy in London runs 24 September 2016 – 2 January 2017.

Gorky, Arshile (1904-1948): Water of the Flowery Mill, 1944. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ©ARS, NY and DACS, London 2016.

Tina Engstrom

The British Museum is the most visited museum in London. Visitors from all over the world are drawn to the museum to see with their own eyes world-famous artefacts, such as the Rosetta Stone or the Parthenon frieze, artefacts that might have only be seen in school or art books. They also come to experience other cultures, because after all the British Museum is the museum of the world for the world. But for the discerning visitor a scratch beneath the surface of all the "celebrity" objects can reveal some real surprises. Here is my list of such surprises.

18 August 2017

Two Hundred Years Of The Parthenon Marbles At The British Museum

The year 2017 marks the bicentenary of the exhibition of the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum. The artefacts were removed from the Athenian Acropolis in 1801 and 1802 by Thomas Bruce, seventh Lord Elgin British Ambassador (1799–1803) to the Ottoman Empire. The sculptures were commissioned in the fifth century BC as part of the rebuilding of the City of Athens ordered by the statesman Pericles following the successful war against the Persians.