On Saturday we met up with Frances to visit Dulwich Picture Gallery's exhibition Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway. It wasn't especially busy, which was a relief after failing to see the apparently similarly obscure Group of Seven exhibition a few years ago. This is the first "major" (however that is defined) exhibition of Astrup's work outside ( Read more... )

A few weekends ago we went to Oxford to see two small exhibitions, Armenia: Masterpieces from an Enduring Culture at the Bodleian and Scenes of Last Tokyo at the Ashmolean. I was a bit indifferent to the first of these - mostly religious artifacts, though one or two interesting pieces. The second, although small, was quite fascinating. We also took ( Read more... )

Best of the year:

• Fiction - The Merchants of Light - A Novel of Venice, by Marta Maretich
• Non-Fiction - The Cucumber for Java Book, by Seb Rose, Matt Wynne, and Aslak Hellesøy
• Music - Prom 28 - The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, and The Poem of Ecstasy
• Museums and Exhibitions - Escher at Dulwich Picture Gallery
• Food and ( Read more... )

Yesterday afternoon we headed to the Science Museum for the Cosmonauts exhibition. It's interesting to reflect on just how much of the Space Race was won by the USSR; perhaps we tend to focus on the Apollo programme Moon landings not just because they were the pinnacle of human achievement, but also because they happened to be the thing the USA ( Read more... )

None for ages, and then two come along at once, as we headed to Dulwich Picture Gallery again yesterday for the Amazing World of M C Escher exhibition. Expecting it to be popular we had pre-booked and it was busy, though manageably so. Despite the popularity of so many works, it was definitely worth seeing them up close; their very nature means ( Read more... )

We headed to Oxford yesterday to visit the Ashmolean's Love Bites and Great British Drawings exhibitions. The first, a collection of Gillray caricatures from the New College archives, covered some familiar ground with various ridicule of William Pitt, Charles Fox, George III and Napoleon, but also some of his send-ups and commentaries of other ( Read more... )

Today we visited the British Library for the Magna Carta exhibition. It was busy but not crammed. To be fair there's a limited amount of mileage in a document that is commonly misunderstood (having nothing to say on the rights of peasants, for example) but I think it did a fair job in setting the document in context and showing how it has been ( Read more... )

Yesterday we headed off to Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Ravilious exhibition. I think it's a few years since we've been there; the last one I can remember was an abortive attempt to see the Canadian paintings exhibition in 2012. Fortunately this time there was hardly a queue and we went straight in; the exhibition was popular but not crowded ( Read more... )

Best of the year:

• Fiction - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carré
• Non-Fiction - Continuous Delivery, by David Farley and Jez Humble
• Music - Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela and Fifth Symphony at the Proms
• Museums and Exhibitions - The Baths of Caracalla in Rome
• Food and Drink - Barbakan in York

The Vikings were a peaceful and cultured people - or so Andrew Graham-Dixon's recent programme would have us believe. I'm not sure when the BBC started running thinly disguised advertorial for other national institutions, but this programme related to the Viking exhibition at the British Museum, to which we ventured today ( Read more... )