Exhibition of the week
Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle
The artist born in 1900 who portrayed the real people of the American century, from Andy Warhol to Kate Millet and many more.
• Barbican, London, from 16 February to 21 May
Also showing
Peter Doig
New paintings by the romantic ironist, or ironic romanticist – either way, Doig is a rich enigma.
• Courtauld Gallery, London, 10 February to 29 May
Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance
Absolutely stonking sculptures from 15th-century Florence, including some of the tenderest Madonnas and most provocative pagan images you will ever see.
• V&A, London, 11 February to 11 June
Big Women curated by Sarah Lucas
Sue Webster, Polly Morgan, Gillian Wearing and more in what sounds like a riotous party of a show.
• Firstsite, Colchester, 11 February to 18 June
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Paths to Abstraction
Survey of this Scottish abstract painter who worked in Cornwall.
• Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, 11 February to 20 May
Image of the week
Illusion of Solidity by Janet Sobel
Janet Sobel used glass pipettes to drip moiling tangles and skeins of enamel on to her canvases. Her work was viewed in 1945 by Jackson Pollock, and was likely to have inspired him. This painting is just one of the 150 on display in a new show in London, Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70, proving that abstract expressionism was not only the preserve of male painters.
• Read our full review here
What we learned
Vermeer was a master of the intimate moment
Collage artist Deborah Roberts makes multifaceted portraits of Black America
His exhibition at the Courtauld is giving Painter Peter Doig sleepless nights
Monet’s overlooked elder brother is getting his time to shine
The art of architectural drawing is changing
Modernist masterpieces are taking to the great outdoors in the US
Opened in 1906, Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre is now under threat
Architect Eldred Evans, designer of Tate St Ives, has died aged 85
Masterpiece of the week
Portrait of a Woman, 1551, by Catharina van Hemessen
A woman portrayed by a woman? That’s not what you may expect from Renaissance art. But Van Hemessen had a career as a portraitist at a time when her competition in Flemish art included Bruegel. She appears to have been proudly conscious of breaking into a male-dominated profession, for while many paintings of the time are unsigned, even anonymous, she boldly declares her authorship in Latin: “Catharina De Hemessen pingebat 1551”. It translates as “Catharina van Hemessen was painting this”, a deliberate use of the past imperfect with which Renaissance artists emphasised the creative process rather than finished product. In other words she is both displaying classical erudition and asserting her artistic seriousness. In fact, Van Hemessen also painted what has been claimed as the very first self-portrait of an artist at work, at her easel, brush in hand. That invention suggests she very much wanted to assert her individuality, and her gender, through art. The work she was painting here is sensitive and sympathetic, as she sees melancholy inwardness in this unknown young woman’s face.
• National Gallery, London
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