Hogarth and Europe, Tate Britain, 3rd November—20th March 2022
William Hogarth is known as the vivid satirist of 18th-century England. This exhibition seeks to place him in a European context, stressing the cosmopolitan character of his art and how it reflected dramatic, continent-wide shifts in society. Paintings and prints, such as Marriage A-la-Mode (1743), The Gate of Calais (1748) and Gin Lane (1751), will be shown alongside works by his European contemporaries including Jean-Siméon Chardin in Paris, Pietro Longhi in Venice, and Cornelis Troost in Amsterdam. Hogarth’s primary subject was the city, with all its vice, pleasures and opportunities, but here his portraits—of patrons, family and servants—also reveal a different aspect of his originality.
Spanish Golden Age Gallery, Bishop Auckland, County Durham, opened 15th October
Auckland Castle, once the seat of the Prince Bishops of Durham, has been home, since 1756, to Francisco de Zurbarán’s masterpieces Jacob and His Twelve Sons (circa 1640s). This autumn, it is complemented by a new gallery dedicated to the art of the Spanish Golden Age. The project, long-nurtured by Jonathan Ruffer, owner of the castle and a collector of Spanish Golden Age painting, offers exceptional public access to a tradition poorly represented in Britain, with loans from the UK and America.
Modern Drawings: The Karshan Gift, The Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries, Courtauld Gallery, 19th November—9th January 2022
After a three-year closure, the Courtauld Gallery reopens on 19th November with its Somerset House spaces transformed. One of two new, top-floor temporary exhibition spaces is showing a recent bequest of drawings collected by the late Howard Karshan. This outstanding group of works by European and American masters—including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Georg Baselitz and Cy Twombly—brings the Courtauld’s holdings well into the 20th century, enabling a modern extension to the gallery’s journey through art history.
