THE BEST ART SHOWS TO VISIT FROM THIS MONTH ONWARDS
FRUIT OF FRIENDSHIP: PORTRAITS BY MARY BEALE
25 April to 19 July 2024
Mary Beale (1633-1699) was one of Britain’s first professional and most prolific woman artists of her period. Working throughout the turbulent late-17th century, she established one of the earliest successful studios for a British woman artist. This exhibition will span her entire career and include self-portraits, portraits of her family and friends, and formal commissions.
Fruit of Friendship will also shed light on Beale’s progressive studio practice and highlight its radical reversal of conventional gender roles for the period. The exhibition will present three works not seen in public before. These include an early re-discovered portrait of the artist’s husband, dressed theatrically in a fur hat, a rare example of a formal portrait of an identified child and a portrait of Anne Sotheby, which will be displayed in the gallery for two weeks before it is exhibited in Tate Britain’s upcoming exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520–1920.
Philip Mould Gallery, 18-19 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5LU. philipmould.com
BLOOMIN’ BRILLIANT: THE LIFE AND WORK OF RAYMOND BRIGGS
27 April to 27 October 2024
A new exhibition featuring never-seen-before items and artworks from one of the UK´s most beloved author-illustrators – Raymond Briggs (1934-2022) – will open in the part of East Sussex that he made his home. Bloomin’ Brilliant: The Life and Work of Raymond Briggs is a highly personal show that will bring together 30 items from the late author´s estate with over 100 original artworks from his 60-year career.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Lodge Hill Ln, Ditchling, Hassocks BN6 8SP. ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk
PATRICK BOSWELL: THE WYMONDHAM SCROLL
7 to 12 May 2024
Wymondham artist, Patrick Boswell, now in his 82nd year, is preparing for his next exhibition centred around a yearlong project completed last November. Entitled The Wymondham Scroll, it is a 164ft long watercolour of street scenes of the Medieval and Georgian heart of the market town of Wymondham, where he has lived for the past 29 years. This will be rolled out with 60ft of scroll displayed at a time and changed every two days throughout
