Newsletter March 2015: What’s On

The Royal Academy’s Diebenkorn show is this month’s must-see in London.  It charts his development from his 1950s student works to his best-known pastel coloured works from the late 1970s and early 1980s, flitting between abstraction and figuration.  This has been heralded by the press as a “blast of fresh air” and a “pitch-perfect” show. It is on until 7th June.

Equally highly acclaimed is the Courtauld’s “Witches and Old Women” exhibition.  23 drawings of women about to devour children, of naked witches straddling flying brooms, or of stooped old men struggling to walk, give us a remarkable and very intimate insight into the very private world of Goya’s imagination.  This sobering but brilliant show closes on 25th May.

If you need a reason to leave London, a stunning exhibition of Canaletto’s British pictures has just opened at Compton Verney in Warwickshire.  This display from the Italian master’s English sojourn is packed with loans from the National Gallery, the Royal Collection and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s collection.  The gallery is set in 120 acres of beautiful parkland, so make a day of it.

Closing soon is Pace’s knock-out show of Robert Fraser’s collection.  “Groovy Bob”, famously busted with Mick Jagger for possession of illegal drugs in 1967, was London’s go-to art dealer in the 60s and this exhibition immortalises his impact as one of the most influential, glamorous and controversial dealers of the time.  Artists include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol and Peter Blake.  Open until this Saturday, 28th March.