Tom Birchenough

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Marina Vaizey, Tom Birchenough
Old, New and Now. LONDON’S ROYAL ACADEMY TURNS 250
#4 2018 (61)
The anniversaries of celebrated cultural institutions are Janus-like: they look backwards to history to commemorate and celebrate - and forwards towards modernisation and change. Marking its 250 th "birthday” this year, London’s Royal Academy of Arts has made a huge and optimistic affirmation of its future, and thus of the role of art in the society which it inhabits. Its private supporters have backed an enormous fundraising campaign, with some £84 million raised to support a physical expansion of the Academy’s premises which underlines a much enhanced engagement with both professional practitioners and the general public.

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Tom Birchenough
WYNDHAM LEWIS. PORTRAITS OF FRIENDS AND FOES
#2 2016 (51)
Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was a key figure of the English modernist movement in both art and literature, acquainted with - as friend or enemy - almost all the key figures of British culture in the first half of the 20th century. Best known from 1914 as the founder and leading proponent of the pioneering British modernist movement Vorticism, his considerable legacy in another field, portraiture, was the subject of a retrospective at London’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG).

Tom Birchenough
ALEXANDER GOLOVIN AND SPAIN
#4 2015 (49)
"Golovin visited Spain only three or four times - less than France, Germany or Italy, to which he travelled in the years before World War I almost every year. But Spain became something of a poetic homeland for the artist, and a lasting source of inspiration for him. Golovin studied the Spanish language, knew the country's history, literature, music and art very well... [The works he painted on Spanish themes and his theatrical productions involving Spanish motifs] can only be termed 'genre' works in the loosest sense, rather they are painting-remembrances, painting-fantasies, in which Golovin expressed his painterly view of Spain, and his feeling for the Spanish national character."

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Tom Birchenough
A Double Portrait: Sargent and Sorolla
#4 2013 (41)
One of the main exhibitions of Winter 2006 in Madrid was an unprecedented "double" exhibition of the artists John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla, staged in two locations – the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, and the major central city exhibition hall, the Fundacion Caja Madrid. After its closure in Spain in January, it will run at the Petit Palais in Paris until May 13.
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Tom Birchenough Special issue N2. USA–RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES More than 60 years after his early death, the work of Arshile Gorky continues to be reassessed: the last decade alone has seen the appearance of three new biographies of a figure who is now seen as one of the key forerunners of Abstract Expressionism in America, and a “bridge” between earlier European directions and the New World in the 1940s. A major retrospective exhibition of the artist opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in October 2009, before transferring to Tate Modern in London over the Spring, and will close this September at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles – by any standards, an impressive “tour” for such an artistic project. |

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Tom Birchenough
Giorgio Morandi: A Master of Stillness
Special issue. ITALY-RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES
The great Italian artist of the 20th century Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) received major renown in New York in Autumn 2008, with a landmark exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accompanied by a range of other shows at other galleries in the city. The largest retrospective in North America for the artist to date, it will move back, in a slightly adjusted format, to the artist’s hometown, Bologna, to be displayed at that city’s Museo d’Arte Moderna from January 22. It was in Bologna that the artist spent the greater part of his life, and where a museum dedicated to his memory occupies an honoured place in one of the city’s central town square buildings.
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Tom Birchenough #1 2011 (30) The exhibition “Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys. 1880-1900”, which closed in the middle of January 2011 at London's Royal Academy, was the first show dedicated to the Scottish artistic movement to be held in more than 40 years. It brought attention back to a group that by around 1900 had become the most internationally-known direction in British art, one that flourished thanks to the adventurous patronage of BritainÕs second city, and rebelled against the traditional academicism that had preceded it. As with other artistic movements of the time in northern European countries, including Russia, the impact of France and Impressionism proved crucial. |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Tom Birchenough #2 2010 (27) More than 60 years after his early death, the work of Arshile Gorky continues to be reassessed: the last decade alone has seen the appearance of three new biographies of a figure who is now seen as one of the key forerunners of Abstract Expressionism in America, and a “bridge” between earlier European directions and the New World in the 1940s. A major retrospective exhibition of the artist opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in October 2009, before transferring to Tate Modern in London over the Spring, and will close this September at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles – by any standards, an impressive “tour” for such an artistic project. |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Tom Birchenough #4 2008 (21) The great Italian artist of the 20th century Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) received major renown in New York in Autumn 2008, with a landmark exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accompanied by a range of other shows at other galleries in the city. The largest retrospective in North America for the artist to date, it will move back, in a slightly adjusted format, to the artist's hometown, Bologna, to be displayed at that cityʼs Museo dʼArte Moderna from January 22. It was in Bologna that the artist spent the greater part of his life, and where a museum dedicated to his memory occupies an honoured place in one of the cityʼs central town square buildings. |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Tom Birchenough #3 2008 (20) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was a key figure of the English modernist movement in both painting and writing, acquainted with – both as friends and, often, enemies – with almost all key figures of the first half of the 20th century working in British culture. Best known as the founder and leading proponent of the pioneering modernist art movement Vorticism from 1914, his considerable legacy in another field, that of portraiture, was the subject of a major retrospective at Londonʼs National Portrait Gallery (NPG). |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Tom Birchenough №2 2008 (19) The art of one of the more significant, if shortlived, British artistic movements of the early 20th century, the Camden Town Group, received a landmark retrospective at London's Tate Britain museum, which closed in May. It proved the first major exhibition for the movement in the British capital for 20 years. |
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS Tom Birchenough №2 2007 (15) One of the main exhibitions of Winter 2006 in Madrid was an unprecedented “double” exhibition of the artists John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla, staged in two locations – the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, and the major central city exhibition hall, the Fundacion Caja Madrid. After its closure in Spain in January, it will run at the Petit Palais in Paris until May 13. |