The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial Exhibition at Saatchi Gallery (5 June - 8 September 2026) The Celestial Equation Sol = Sun Luna = Moon Ars = Arts With the Solar eclipse scheduled for 12 August 2026 in the UK; why not explore the Celestial Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery? Here are my reflections alongside selected artworks. Texts marked with (sg) are from the Saatchi Gallery. The Hooded Moon What counsel has the hooded moon Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet, Of Love in ancient plenilune, Glory and stars beneath his feet — - A sage that is but kith and kin With the comedian Capuchin? ~ from 'What Counsel has the Hooded Moon' by James Joyce ~ One Small Step, 2026. By Whatshisname. Mixed media (3D-printed PLA and PETG, wood, steel, polyurethane foam, resin, filler, acrylic paint). Courtesy of the artist Starman There's a starman waiting in the sky He'd like to come and meet us But he thinks he'd blow our minds ~ from Starman by David Bowie. Released on April 28, 1972, as the lead single for his album ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ ~ One Small Step - Lift Off, 2026. By Whatshisname. Cast Marble Resin with Chromed Visors. Courtesy of the artist. About Whatshisname Whatshisname is the moniker of Sebastian Burdon, an artist who creates iconic and unforgettable sculptures, prints and public art. The smaller sculptures that you see here were originally conceived as a series entitled One Small Step. The larger, breakdancing astronaut, is a new XXL rendition of a smaller work that was sent to the edge of Earth's atmosphere in 2023. In the words of the artist: In these sculptures, astronauts step away from the familiar image of space exploration to do something completely unexpected: dance. A breakdancer balancing on one hand, a ballet dancer poised on a single leg, a pair performing an iconic lift, and two astronauts sharing an embrace. Together, they turn the moon into a stage filled with movement, joy, and human connection. The series was inspired by the 1969 moon landing. This awe-inspiring event proved that if people could travel to the moon, then perhaps the limits we place on ourselves are not as fixed as they seem. The sculptures celebrate both that spirit of exploration and the simple moments that make us human. The space suits hide the identities of the figures, allowing them to represent anyone. They become dancers, dreamers, friends, and explorers, reminding us that creativity, curiosity, and connection can exist anywhere, even on the surface of the moon. Each sculpture is made from cast marble resin, a blend of resin and marble dust that gives the work a soft shimmer and a subtle glow reminiscent of moonlight. Through this series, the artist invites viewers to see astronauts and the world around them in a different way. (sg). Unruly Sun Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? ~ from 'The Sun Rising' by John Donne ~ Helios by Luke Jerram Measuring six metres in diameter, Helios features detailed imagery of the sun's surface. At an approximate scale of 1:230 million, each centimetre on the surface of the globe represents 2300km of the sun's surface. The installation is a fusion of solar imagery, sunlight and a specially created surround sound composition by Duncan Speakman and Sarah Anderson. It is very dangerous to look at the sun directly as it can damage our eyesight, so Helios provides a safe opportunity for the public to get up close to, and inspect its extraordinarily detailed surface, including sunspots, spicules and filaments. The sculpture also features the source of the solar flares which causes the Northern lights to be visible in the skies. Helios, in ancient Greek mythology, is the god who personifies the sun. He drove a four-horse chariot across the sky each day, giving the earth its hours and seasons. Imagery for the artwork has been compiled using 400,000 photographs of the sun provided by Astrophotographer Dr Stuart Green (taken between May 2018 to June 2024) and NASA observations of the sun, with guidance from solar scientist, Professor Lucie Green of University College London (UCL). (sg). POP Art Pop Art is about liking things. ~ Andy Warhol ~ Interior Morning, Interior Noon, Interior Evening, Interior Night, 1971. By Patrick Caulfield. Screenprint on paper Courtesy of Jerwood Patrick Caulfield's paintings and prints are instantly recognisable, often appearing deceptively simple with their vivid colours and mundane everyday objects outlined in solid lines. He possessed an extraordinary talent for crafting artworks that seemed to emerge fully formed, characterized by sharp lines, smooth paint surfaces, and stylised imagery. However, the reality is more intricate. Beneath the visual simplicity of Caulfield's works lie complex concepts, sketches, and studies. (sg). Mosaic Carnival Cosmic Jumbie, 2024. By Zac Ové Glass Mosaic Courtesy of the artist Cosmic Jumbie centres on a recurring figure within Ove's practice: the Moko Jumbie, a towering stilt-walking guardian rooted in West African spiritual traditions and transformed through Trinidad Carnival into a celebratory and protective presence. Traditionally elevated above the crowd, the Moko Jumbie is a figure of vision and spiritual watchfulness, able to foresee danger and ward off evil. Within Ove's work, the figure has become an enduring emblem of resilience, transformation and diasporic continuity. In this mosaic tondo, Ové reimagines the Moko Jumbie within a radiant circular composition that evokes celestial cycles, solar energy and cosmic movement. Suspended within a kaleidoscopic field of intricate glass tesserae, the figure appears surrounded by concentric bursts of colour and symbolic patterning that ripple outward like stars, suns and planetary forms. Drawing together motifs from Ové's wider visual language, including the layered pattern systems of his doily works and the symbolic language of carnival masquerade, Cosmic Jumbie transforms the Moko Jumbie into something both earthly and cosmic: part guardian, part spirit, part celestial force. Rich in colour, rhythm and movement, the work speaks to joy, protection and transformation, while reflecting on the enduring human impulse to look upward and find meaning in the forces that shape life. (sg). Folklore Rising By Ben Edge Clockwise from top left: The Dorset Ooser; John Barley Corn Must Die; Boss Morris at Spring Equinox and Dreaming at Rudston Monolith, 2022-24 Oil on canvas Courtesy of Private Collection Ben Edge is an artist, songwriter, film maker, author and folklorist, whose work depicts the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Edge has been obsessively documenting the seasonal customs of Britain culminating in the book Folklore Rising published by Watkins Publishing in 2024. (sg). …a closer look at 'John Barley Corn Must Die' John Barleycorn: A Ballad There was three kings into the east, Three kings both great and high, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die. They took a plough and plough'd him down, Put clods upon his head, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn was dead. But the chearful Spring came kindly on, And show'rs began to fall; John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surpris'd them all. The sultry suns of Summer came, And he grew thick and strong, His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears, That no one should him wrong. The sober Autumn enter'd mild, When he grew wan and pale; His bending joints and drooping head Show'd he began to fail. His colour sicken'd more and more, He faded into age; And then his enemies began To show their deadly rage. They've taen a weapon, long and sharp, And cut him by the knee; Then ty'd him fast upon a cart, Like a rogue for forgerie. They laid him down upon his back, And cudgell'd him full sore; They hung him up before the storm, And turn'd him o'er and o'er. They filled up a darksome pit With water to the brim; They heaved in John Barleycorn, There let him sink or swim. They laid him out upon the floor, To work him farther woe; And still, as signs of life appear'd, They toss'd him to and fro. They wasted, o'er a scorching flame, The marrow of his bones; But a miller us'd him worst of all, For he crush'd him between two stones. And they hae taen his very heart's blood, And drank it round and round; And still the more and more they drank, Their joy did more abound. John Barleycorn was a hero bold, Of noble enterprise; For if you do but taste his blood, 'Twill make your courage rise. 'Twill make a man forget his woe; 'Twill heighten all his joy; 'Twill make the widow's heart to sing, Tho' the tear were in her eye. Then let us toast John Barleycorn, Each man a glass in hand; And may his great posterity Ne'er fail in old Scotland! ~ by Robert Burns; a song written in 1782 ~ Our Song Our song is the slamming screen door Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window When we're on the phone, and you talk real slow 'Cause it's late, and your mama don't know Our song is the way you laugh The first date, "Man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have" And when I got home, 'fore I said, "Amen" Asking God if he could play it again ~ from Our Song by Taylor Swift ~ Our Song, 2026. By Syotatsu. Soil, Glue, Pigment, Watercolor, Brass powder on Wooden panel Courtesy of the artist and Private Pretty in Pink Pink isn't just a colour, it's an attitude! ~ Miley Cyrus ~ Untitled, 2025. By Darcy Fleming. Discarded baling twine Courtesy of the artist This work is made from discarded baling twine donated by farmers in Oxfordshire and West Berkshire. Baling twine is used by farmers and horse owners to tie hay and straw bales together, once used it is often burnt or added to landfill. Through a self-developed weaving process, Fleming transforms this waste material into ambiguous sculptural forms. Fleming does not dye any of the twines, her colour pallet is dependent on what twines are discarded by the farmers at any given time. Her work is indirectly reliant on the environment, climate and the seasons - the twine is available after animals have been housed (usually in the winter) or fed. In the summer months, twine is not used. Climate change impacts the traditional indigenous crop cycle resulting in a reduction of the harvest of cereal crops and hay-resulting in less hay and straw bales to bind with twine, thus, leading to a reduction in twine. This work loosely references local traditions that are connected to the land, the shape of the work evokes traditional stacking of hay before mechanisation and combine harvesters. Presenting a strange meeting of past, present and future. (sg). Sun Tree What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? ~ E.M. Forster ~ Solaris, 2025. By Amelie Solis. Natural pigments on recycled hemp paper Courtesy of the artist and Private Collection Warriors of the Sun Sun Goddess - Eagle and Jaguar Warriors, 1993. By Marj Bond. Mixed media, collage Courtesy of Collection RAW Eagle and Jaguar warriors were the specialised military forces of the Aztec Empire, often serving as "warriors of the Sun". These high-ranking soldiers, typically nobles, played crucial roles in capturing enemies for sacrifice to nourish the sun god, with eagles representing the sun and jaguars representing the night sky. (sg). Awash L to R Raging at the Close of Day, 2026. By Henrietta Hoyer Millar. Oil on gessor board. Courtesy of the artist and Long Ryle Gallery. Inspired by the varying shapes and shades of her surroundings, Henrietta Hoyer Millar paints exquisite landscapes from her studio in Dorset. Frith Farm, 1974. By John Titchell. Oil. Courtesy of the Estate of J. Titchell. Titchell was described by described by Kenneth Clark as "the Seurat of Kent". Sun Sang, 1969 by Ian Fleming. Oil on board. Courtesy of the artist and The Fleming Collection. (Ian Fleming is unrelated to Ian Fleming the author - Fleming, the artist, was born in Glasgow and studied at the Glasgow School of Art. He began printmaking at art school, and Glasgow Art Gallery bought two of his prints while he was still a student.) Fantastical Creatures Moon in a Cage, 20th Century. By George Jardine Oil on board Courtesy of Williamson Art Gallery and Museum (Wirral Museums Services) Jardine is considered 'Merseyside's Surrealist" and is known for his strange, wonderful, and at times slightly unsettling compositions. He was intrigued by the see-saw between imagination and stark materialism, and resulted in the unique blending of naturalism, surrealism and Victorian fantasy that is characteristic to his work. Jardine taught graphics, collage, drawing and book illustration at Liverpool College of Art, often taking inspiration from children's books for his own fantastical pieces, such as Lunar Episodes - the body of work which this work belongs. Lunar Episodes began in 1938, after visiting a surrealist exhibition at Walker Art Gallery which featured artists such as Dali and Ernst. Scenes such as Moon in a Cage contain fantastical combinations of animals, people, strange contraptions and, usually, the moon. The series builds up into a strange, unique and dream-like world, reminiscent of fairy tales and children's story books. (sg) Fact and Fiction The Black Knight, 2021. By Su Blackwell. Paper cut sculpture Courtesy of Long & Ryle Gallery Fiction: The Black Knight is a classic antagonist in Arthurian Legend. Fact: The most prominent historical figure known as the Black Knight (properly "The Black Prince") was Edward of Woodstock (1330–1376). He was the eldest son of King Edward III of England. Helios Helios, 2022. By Emile Pugh. Burnt Kozuke Paper, 22 carot gold backing panel Courtesy of the artist Emilie Pugh's work is guided by an interest in the interconnectivity of all living things. It draws on systems of belief from the spiritual to the scientific, the micro to the macro and the conflicting or confluent universal forces that govern them. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios is the god who personifies the sun. (sg) Op(tical) Art Since 1961, Bridget Riley (b. 1931) has focused exclusively on seemingly simple geometric forms, such as lines, circles, curves, and squares, arrayed across a surface—whether a canvas, a wall, or paper—according to an internal logic. The resulting compositions actively engage the viewer, at times triggering sensations of vibration and movement. This sense of dynamism was explored to great effect in the artist's earliest black-and-white paintings, which established the basis of her enduring formal vocabulary. In 1967, Riley introduced color into her work, thus expanding the perceptual and optical possibilities of her compositions. (text by David Zwirner). Study for 'Ra, 1980. By Bridget Riley. Gouache and pencil Courtesy of The Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool The colours in 'Ra' were inspired by Riley's trip to Egypt in the early 1980s. Upon returning, she created several series using warm hues and vibrant colours, including 'Ka' and 'Ra'. Ra is the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun, regarded as the king of the gods, creator of all life, and patron of kingship. (sg) Strange New Worlds - Nothing to Fear, Nothing to Doubt I jumped in the river, what did I see? Black-eyed angels swam with me A moon full of stars and astral cars And all the figures I used to see ~ from Pyramid Song, (Amnesiac). lyrics by Philip James Selway / Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood / Edward John O'brien / Thomas Edward Yorke / Colin Charles Greenwood ~ And Everything was Strange and New, 2026. By Stanley Donwood Donwood has created all the artwork for the rock band Radiohead with their singer, Thom Yorke. He also creates art for many of Yorke's other projects, including Atoms for Peace and the Smile. In 2002, Donwood and Yorke won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package for the Radiohead album Amnesiac.

"Full sculptural expression is spatial - it is the three-dimensional realization of an idea, either by mass or by space construction. The materials for sculpture are unlimited in their variety of quality, tenseness and aliveness. But for the imaginative idea to be fully and freely projected into stone, wood or any plastic substance, a complete sensibility to material - an understanding of its inherent quality and character - is required. There must be a perfect unity between the idea, the substance and the dimension: this unity gives scale... Vitality is not a physical, organic attribute of sculpture - it is a spiritual inner life." - Barbara Hepworth. The Hepworth in Colour Exhibition at The Courtauld, London 12 June – 6 September 2026 Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries (text by The Courtauld unless otherwise indicated) Sea Form (Porthmeor), 1958. Bronze Views of Porthmeor Beach. (extreme left and right photos from cafe of Tate, St Ives. Middle photo includes view over front entrance of Tate St Ives. "I have gained very great inspiration from the Cornish land - and seascape, the horizontal line of the sea and the quality of light and colour which reminds me of the Mediterranean light and colour which so excites one's sense of form; and first and last there is the human figure which in the country becomes a free and moving part of a greater whole. This relationship between figure and landscape is vitally important to me. I cannot feel it in a city." - Barbara Hepworth L: Single Form, 1937-8. Plaster & paint | R: Oval with Black and White, Swedish marble & paint Single Form belongs to a group of seven totem-like carvings created by Hepworth in 1937–8. The series interrogated one of her most important motifs, the vertical standing form, across different materials including marble and a selection of soft- and hardwoods. Expanded Colour In 1953, a documentary made with the new process of colour film, titled Figures in a Landscape, offered dream-like images of Hepworth's sculpture sited in the landscape. The colours of their painted interiors blended with those of the sky and sea of Cornwall, where she chose to live for the rest of her life. For Hepworth, it was her colours more than her forms that expressed the sensations, light and atmosphere of the Cornish coast. As she recalled, 'The colour in the concavities plunged me into the depths of water, caves, or shallows deeper than the carved concavities themselves! From about 1943, pale blue became Hepworth's favourite hue, applied to the hollowed-out interiors of her exquisite wood carvings, while sunny yellows and a vibrant blue emanate from curved surfaces of a small group of stone sculptures made in the immediate post-war years. The many drawings and paintings of the period present a combination of bright and pastel hues offset by black lines and solid white forms. Hepworth used colour poetically as a way to express her feeling of being in the landscape. This continued into the 1950s and 1960s, when she added strong blacks, whites and terracotta hues, as well as the coppery greens of her patinated bronzes (Text by The Courtauld). Top Row - L to R: Curved Stone with Yellow, 1946. Stone & paint | repeat | Tides II, 1946. Plane wood & paint. Bottom Row - L to R: Oval Form, 1956. Oil & pencil on board | Eidos, 1947. Portland stone & paint | Curved Form with Green, 1943. Pencil & gouache on paper. Eidos (bottom row, middle photo): The title Eidos, which means 'shape' or 'form' in Greek, might refer to the sculpture or to the Cornish landscape which Hepworth said inspired it. In line with the principles of constructive colour, a bright cadmium yellow accentuates the depth of carving on the front and the shallowness of the painted section on the back. Its central form is nested womb-like within a series of enfolding curves, connecting it to the maternal imagery present in Hepworth's work in the late 1940s. When Eidos's owner asked the sculptor if the yellow, which was flaking, should be repainted, she insisted that these 'natural processes' of ageing were part of the work's character. (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with the assistance of the Samuel E. Wills Bequest to commemorate the retirement of Dr E. Westbrook, Director of Arts for Victoria, 1981.) L to R: Top - Intersection, 1946. Pencil and gouache on board | Sculpture with Colour (Eos), 1946. Hopton wood stone and paint | Turning Form (Atlantic) 1961. Oil & pencil on board. Eos (middle photo): Ovals were a favourite shape of Hepworth's. Adding colour was one way to introduce variety, here accentuating the contrast between the smoothly polished stone, precisely carved ridges and vibrantly painted surfaces. Walking around the sculpture, each side offers a new and unanticipated colour experience. Hepworth said she used colour to evoke the sensation of light falling on a specific surface at certain times of day. Since Eos was the Greek goddess of the dawn, the vivid blue and very pale whiteish greys could refer to the sky at daybreak. This sculpture and Eidos (see above) are reunited - placed next to each other at The Courtauld’s Hepworth in Colour exhibition - for the first time in the UK since the sculptor's first major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1954. Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, St Ives, Cornwall (owned and managed by Tate since 1980) The Barbara Hepworth Museum was opened in 1976 by Hepworth's family, following the wishes expressed in her will. The Museum has been owned and run by Tate since 1980. It contains the largest group of Hepworth's works, permanently on display at Trewyn Studio and garden where she lived and worked from 1949 until her death in 1975. Figure for Landscape 1959-60 St Ives Barbara Hepworth lived for exactly half of her life in St Ives. When she arrived just before the outbreak of war in 1939, it was as a rather unwilling visitor. However she found it impossible to leave, and when she acquired Trewyn Studio ten years later, Hepworth had an ideal environment in which to work. As she wrote to a friend the day after she bought Trewyn at a public auction: "it will be a joy to carve in such a perfect place, both serene & secluded – the courtyard & garden protected by tall trees & roof tops so that I can work out of doors most of the year." (From Barbara Hepworth.org) Stone Sculpture (Fugue II), 1956. Grey Limestone. The Sculptor's Landscape "A sculptor's landscape embraces all things that grow and live and are articulate in principle: the shape of the buds already formed in autumn, the thrust and fury of spring growth, the adjustment of trees and rocks and human beings to the fierceness of winter - all these belong to the sculptor's world, as well as the supreme perception of man, woman and child of this expanding universe. It is within our bodies to feel and to be, and in making a sculpture we do, in fact, make a talisman that enables us to enter our architecture and look at our painting as fully posed human beings." - Barbara Hepworth. Top row: - L to R: Hollow Form with Inner form 1968 | View of St Ia's Parish Church tower | foreground - Corymb 1969 & background Sphere with Inner Form, 1963. Bottom row - L to R: Forms in Movement (Pavan), 1956-9, cast 1967 | River Form 1965, cast 1973 | Four Square (Walk Through), 1966. Trewyn Studio "Finding Trewyn Studio was a sort of magic. For ten years I had passed by with my shopping bags not knowing what lay behind the twenty foot wall... Here was a studio, a yard and garden, where I could work in open air and space". - Barbara Hepworth. Trewyn Studio, St Ives Two Forms (Divided Circle) 1969. Bronze. Four Square (Walk Through), 1966. Bronze. First: Oval with Two Forms, 1971. Marble and slate on slate base. Swipe for Second: Stringed Figure (Curlew / Version II). 1956, edition 1959. Brass with string on wooden base.

The most comprehensive presentation of Moore’s work in a generation. Kew Gardens presents a once-in-a-generation exhibition of artworks by Henry Moore, one of the most influential and internationally recognised artists of the 20th century. From 9 May 2026 to 31 January 2027, Henry Moore: Monumental Nature will showcase 30 works across Kew’s landscape and inside the iconic Temperate House, the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world. Selected snapshots (text by RBG Kew, unless otherwise attributed): Locking Piece, 1962-63 Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: acquired 1987. Large Reclining Figure, 1984. Moore thought deeply about the relationship between his sculptures and where they would be placed. He often created multiple bronze casts to sit in different locations, each one transforming how the work was experienced. Large Reclining Figure 1984 is the enlargement of a 13-inch figure that Moore had originally created in 1938. This sculpture was completed just two years before his death. It was the result of Moore's fourth and final collaboration with renowned Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei, known for iconic landmarks such as the glass pyramid at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Their collaborations were a true partnership, and they consulted on scale, placement and form. Moore's curved and fluid bronze sculptures provided a a contrast to Pei's sharp-edged modernist architectural designs. This fibreglass cast of the sculpture is the only non-bronze Moore sculpture on display at Kew. 'The tall building behind the sculpture is the Pagoda, which is a very famous building at Kew. The sculpture has a kind of horizontal organic form and then you ve got the Pagoda which is this kind of tall, vertical, geometric form. So, they're very contrasting but actually I think they complement each other? Suzie Jewell, Garden Designer, RBG Kew. Two Piece Reclining Figure: Cut, 1979-81 Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: acquired 1986. Reclining Mother and Child, 1975-76. Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: acquired 1986. Knife Edge Two Piece, 1962-65. Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: gift of the artist 1977. Draped Reclining Figure, 1952-53. Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: gift of the artist 1977. Reclining Figure: Arch Leg, 1969-70. Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: acquired 1987. Hill Arches, 1973. Alternative view of Hill Arches. Bronze Henry Moore Foundation: gift of the artist 1977. In Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae 1968-69, Moore took inspiration from real bones to create three smooth forms that look like giant backbones, or vertebrae, that fit together like a puzzle. This sculpture was created in four sizes, driven by Moore's desire to work in three dimensions and to create versions that suited specific locations. Moore began by creating a plaster maquette (a small model), followed by a larger working model cast in bronze. He then developed this large bronze and finally, ten years later, the largest version, which is nearly double the size, for the new city hall in Dallas, Texas in 1978. “I tried several ideas before this one, and what led me to this solution was finding a little piece of bone that was the middle of a vertebra, and I realised then that perhaps the connection was through one piece to another - one could have gone on and made a four- or five-piece, like a snake carrying through with its vertebrae?” Henry Moore Large Interior Form, 1953-54 Large Interior Form appears abstract but actually represents the human figure. Moore tried to create "organisms that must be complete in themselves," and to give the impression of his sculptures, "having grown organically, created by pressure from within." Referring to the voids common to his sculptures, Moore said that holes make an object look more three-dimensional by connecting one side with the other. The three voids in this artwork were inspired by holes the artist observed in pebbles he found at the seashore. (Text by Public Art Archive). Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped, 1975. The three elements of this late, monumental, reclining figure incorporate smooth and curvaceous passages which are sharply cut into stump-like forms. The largest part, a rising chest and neck, juxtaposes one amputated arm with a heavily bowed and bulbous counterpart which merges with the torso. The torso juts up and outwards towards the centre of the composition before being bluntly severed. This treatment is echoed in the head, resulting in a blank facial plane. The verticality of this element contrasts with the horizontal arched ‘skirt’ of the figure, which shields a separate and more sinuous ‘leg-form’. The component parts are carefully spaced across the flat bronze base. (Text by Henry Moore Foundation).

‘To establish the Dream of realities, the Ineffable soaring above them, to dissect them without pity to see their Soul, to strive for the pursuit of the Intangible and meditate – in silence – to inscribe the mysterious Meaning.’ - Henry van de Velde - Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists This blog highlights selected pieces from the National Gallery London's Radical Harmony Exhibition, which runs until 8th February 2026. The exhibition primarily features works from the collection of German art collector Helene Kröller-Müller (1869‒1939), housed at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands. Radical Harmony focuses on how this style that emerged from 1886 when Georges Seurat exhibited his work ' A Sunday on La Grande Jatte ' at what was to prove the final Impressionist exhibition heralded the end of Impressionism and, became one of the very first pan-European art movements. Who was Helene Kröller-Müller? Helene Kröller-Müller, one of the foremost female art patrons of the 20th century, curated what is likely the world's most extensive and comprehensive collection of Neo-Impressionist paintings. She was a pioneer i n displaying modern works of art on white walls; within a museum designed by Belgian architect Henry van de Velde. Van de Velde was himself a Neo-Impressionist painter at the beginning of his career. Kröller-Müller was also the first to recognise the significance of Vincent van Gogh’s unusual painting style. Over just three decades, she amassed a magnificent collection of some 11,500 objects, featuring luminaries of Neo-Impressionist and Modern art, including Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, and Piet Mondrian. The exhibition at the National Gallery is just a small representation of her collection. In describing the first museum she opened in 1913, Helene Kröller-Müller was delighted by the contrast created by her room of Van Goghs, in her words - 'dramatic and heavy, like hammer blows' - and the 'light and delicate, spiritual' qualities of her Neo-Impressionist paintings. Prior to becoming a collector, Helene Kröller-Müller studied art appreciation with the critic and former Neo-Impressionist painter Hendricus Petrus (Henk) Bremmer (1871-1956). Bremmer's passion for the movement, along with his friendships with many Dutch followers of the group such as Jan Toorop and newcomers like Johan Aarts (1871-1934) and Johan Thorn Prikker (1868-1932), inspired Kröller-Müller's deep affection for their remarkably minimalist landscapes. These works became the cornerstone of her extraordinary Neo-Impressionist collection. She believed, as did many of the artists gathered in this room, that it was art's duty to extract a deeper, spiritual significance from the world of appearances. She hoped the public would be moved by these pictures' profound sense of peace and by what she perceived as their great emotional depth. For more on Kröller-Müller, visit Kröller-Müller Museum webpage here . Description derived from that found in the exhibition at the National Gallery London. By Théo van Rysselberghe. In July, before noon, (1890) For an artist so well known for his portraits, Van Rysselberghe here conceals the faces of the women gathered in an orchard, most strikingly and playfully cutting off the profile of the woman on the far right with a tree trunk. Each figure is shown absorbed in her own thoughts and activities. The suggestion is one of companionable silence within the stillness brought on by noon-day heat. While faceless, the identities of the two women seen from behind are known: in blue is Maria Monom, the artist's wite, while in pink is their mutual friend, Maria Sèthe (see 3. Portraits). Oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands Text by National Gallery London . By Paul Signac. Portrieux, The Lighthouse, Opus 183, (1888) At Portrieux, in northern Brittany, Signac created an overlapping series of views of the lighthouse and harbour wall under different light and weather conditions. The Neo-Impressionists' concern for capturing atmospheric effects was something they shared with the Impressionists. But their search for simplified forms combined with their painstaking technique separated them from the earlier movement. Signac gave both pictures Opus numbers, a cataloguing system he adopted to suggest an equivalence between his art and musical compositions. Oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. Text by National Gallery London By Maximilien Luce. The Iron Foundry, (1899) Luce witnessed the inhumane working conditions of steel workers in the industrial heartlands of southern Belgium. But here, he chose to focus on the men's strength and integrity. Backlit by molten metal, they work together in an anarchist ideal of creative co-operation. The figures on the right even enjoy a moment of rest. Kröller-Müller bought this picture directly from Luce in 1922 and it was without any apparent sense of irony that for many years it hung in the office of her husband, Anton Kröller, who ran the family's iron ore and shipping business. Oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. Text by National Gallery London By Maximilien Luce. Morning, Interior, (1890) A ‘Close-up’. Luce, a member of the Anarchist Group of the 14th arrondissement of Paris, pays homage to the everyday routines of artisanal labour in depicting his friend Gustave Perrot, a painter and architectural gilder, getting dressed for work. Luce suggests that artists and artisans are workers too. The pictures hanging in the attic room illustrate the anarchist belief that art should be available to all, while the painting itself is an aesthetically balanced construction of diagonal lines and rich contrasts of colour. Oil on canvas Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Text by National Gallery London Seascapes L to R (desk top view) By Paul Signac. Saint-Briac, The Beacons, Opus 210, (1890) - oil on canvas, private collection. By Henry Van de Velde. Seashore (Beach at Blankenberghe), (1889) - oil on canvas, Kunsthalle Bremen - Der Kunstverein in Bremen. By Henri-Edmond Cross. Beach at La Vignasse (c. 1891-2)n- oil on canvas, Le Havre, Musée d'art moderne André Malraux. By Théo van Rysselberghe. Coastal Scene, (c. 1892) Painted in a limited palette of mainly blues and whites, Van Rysselberghe reduces the elements of this view - spits of land meeting sea and sky - to their barest minimum. Six posts within a glowing patch on the water provide the only signs of a human presence in the otherwise deserted landscape. Despite its cool tonality, the picture was probably painted when Van Rysselberghe was travelling with Signac on the Mediterranean coast of France. Oil on canvas The National Gallery London. Text by National Gallery London By Georges Seurat. Chahut, (1889-90) Cancan or Chahut The men and women in this painting are energetically performing the chahut, or cancan, a daring dance for its time, where the women lift their skirts and kick their legs into the air. Although the subject is lively, Le Chahut is not a spontaneous snapshot of Parisian nightlife but a meticulously crafted artwork. Seurat is intrigued by the interplay of light and color and intentionally seeks a systematic approach to portray this effect. He has depicted the vibrant dance using a precise technique of countless tiny dots of paint, lines, and color combinations. The dancehall is enveloped in warm hues and radiant artificial light. The dancers resemble archetypes rather than real people. They move in rhythmic repetition. Every line and movement in the painting is directed upwards to convey the exhilarating atmosphere of the dance and music: the dancers’ legs, the conductor’s hand, the men’s moustaches, the corners of the women’s mouths and eyes, the neck of the double bass, and even the flowers in the background. Seurat's Chahut (1889-90) is the greatest Neo-Impressionist painting collected by Helene Kröller-Müller, and one of Seurat's most important works. One of his toiles de luttes (battle canvases), as he liked to refer to his most provocative manifesto pictures, Chahut was the last such painting the artist brought to completion before his untimely death in 1891, aged 31. Helene Kröller-Müller's purchase of Chahut in 1922 made it the first major work by Seurat to be acquired for public display. Two years later, the National Gallery London bought Bathers at Asnières (1884), on view in Room 44. Oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. Description summarised from text provided by the Kröller-Müller Museum and The National Gallery London. By Henry van de Velde. Twilight, (c. 1889) A ‘Close-up’. Constructed from three bold horizontal bands - the foreground grass, a row of cottages and the sky - Van de Velde captures the low light of evening in a harmony of purples and greens. The lone figure of an elderly woman, her hunched shoulders caught by the evening light, gives the picture its chief focus which, combined with the fragile lines of tall saplings lining the path, lends the scene an air of profound melancholy. Oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands Text by National Gallery London. Portraits and Groups Traditionally, a portrait is expected to depict a precise likeness. This contrasts with the Neo-impressionist belief that artistic harmony should be achieved by distilling form into a more generalised representation. Top row, L to R (desk top view) By Georges Seurat. Paul Signac, (1890) - conte crayon on paper, private collection. By Théo van Rysselberghe. Anna Bloch, (1892) - oil on canvas, Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts. The James Philip Gray Collection By Georges Lemmen. Jan Toorop, (1890) - conte crayon on paper, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolie and Heino/Wijhe, The Netherlands. Bottom row, L to R (desk top view) By Paul Signac. A Sunday, Opus 201, (c. 1888-90) - oil on canvas, private collection. By Théo van Rysselberghe. Maria Sethe at the Harmonium, (1891) - oil on canvas, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp - Flemish Community. By Paul Signac. The Dining Room, Opus 152, (c. 1886-7) - oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands.

Catch the exhibition at The Courtauld in London. Ends Sunday18 January, 2026. Wayne Thiebaud. American Still Life An exquisite exhibition showcasing the art of American Artist Wayne Thiebaud. On a dreary winter day, it offers the perfect visual "sugar rush". The exhibition at The Courtauld (London) is the first museum display of his work in the UK. It features Thiebaud’s extraordinary, vibrant, and richly painted still-lifes of distinctly post-war American themes, including diner food, deli counters, gumball machines, and pinball machines. These are the paintings that established Thiebaud's reputation in the USA in the early 1960s.  The exhibition includes rarely loaned works from prominent museum collections in the USA, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, along with the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation.  Here are selected works of what is on display. All text in art labels from The Courtauld . Cakes, 1963. In this celebrated painting, Wayne Thiebaud gives an epic account of one of his favourite motifs, a display of bright and brash cakes familiar from bakeries and diners across America. Working on an unusually large scale for a still-life painting, he accords both the genre itself and his commonplace subject matter monumental status. Thiebaud uses his paint thickly and lushly to accentuate what he considered the distinctly American character of the patterned, vividly coloured and excessively frosted offerings. Cakes was a standout work in exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles in 1963 and helped confirm Thiebaud's emerging reputation as a distinctive painter of modern American life. Borrowed from: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Gift in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art from the Collectors Committee, the 50th Anniversary Gift Committee, and The Circle, with additional support from the Abrams Family in memory of Harry N. Abrams. Boston Cremes, 1962. Wayne Thiebaud's interest in objects of everyday consumerism meant that he was often categorised as a Pop artist and was included in several seminal Pop Art exhibitions throughout the 1960s. However, his lushly painted works are at odds with the cool detachment and slick surfaces more typical of that movement. This painting shows Thiebaud working at the extreme of his distinctive approach, with its whipped, buttery brushstrokes conjuring the substance of the creamy cakes themselves. As he put it, white, gooey, shiny, sticky oil paint spread out on the top of a painted cake becomes frosting. It is playing with reality. Borrowed from : Crocker Art Museum . Penny Machines, 1961. The character of Wayne Thiebaud's art changed dramatically in 1961, as the loose brushwork of his earlier paintings gave way to more clearly rendered and tightly composed forms. Penny Machines marks the beginning of this transition. Its line-up of three boldly painted sweet dispensers has what Thiebaud called a new 'head-on directness' that confidently presents these common commercial objects as small monuments. He uses sweeping strokes of thickly brushed paint to construct the surfaces in bold blue and pink - colours that he would soon cease to use for his backgrounds, preferring more neutral creams and whites. Borrowed from : Collection of John Berggruen Candy Counter, 1962. Candy Counter is one of Wayne Thiebaud's earliest large-scale still lifes of everyday modern American subjects. It crystallised his new approach of working with greater clarity and directness. As was typical for the artist, he painted from memory rather than with the subject in front of him. He started by defining the counter with painted lines of vibrant colour before building up the composition with thick brushstrokes. He carefully depicted the tempting selection of lollipops, candied apples and slabs of nougat. However, the counter is surprisingly sparse and stark. As one writer commented: 'Despite their sweet and infectious child-like pleasure in vernacular Americana, paintings by Thiebaud reveal a bitter pang of isolation and melancholy in pop culture!’ Borrowed from : Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Palo Alto Gift of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, and Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. Caged Pie, 1962 Some of Wayne Thiebaud's most poignant works isolate just a single object. Here, a last slice of cherry pie remains in a glass case on a countertop. Thiebaud explained how he recalled fragments of youthful memories as he painted: 'From when I worked in restaurants, I can remember seeing rows of pies, or a tin of pie with one piece out of it. Those little vedute [views], in fragmented circumstances, were always poetic to me.' Borrowed from: San Diego Museum of Art . Pie Rows, 1962. Painting pies set Wayne Thiebaud on a new artistic path. In the early 1960s, he produced several closely related versions of this breakthrough composition, drawing on his memories of working in restaurants. The simplicity of the shapes - rows of circles and triangles - reminded him of Paul Cézanne's claim that authentic painting should be built from basic forms. Thiebaud's paintings of pies were standout works in his highly successful debut exhibition at the Allan Stone Gallery in New York in 1962. It presented a rich display of some 46 paintings, hung in stacked groups, most of which were bought by prominent collectors and major museums. Borrowed from : Collection of the Wayne Thiebaud Yo-Yos, 1963. Wayne Thiebaud was fascinated by the colours and decorative patterns that recurred across a range of modern consumer products. In this depiction of children's yo-yos, he relishes painting their bright swirls and stars. It could easily be mistaken for one of Thiebaud's paintings of cakes or candies. Where others might have seen banal uniformity in such cheap, mass-produced objects, Thiebaud explored the beauty of their small differences. Here, his attentive and thickly applied brushwork introduces idiosyncrasies in each object, creating a strange transposition of the factory-produced yo-yos remade by the artist's hand. Borrowed from : Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Jackpot Machine, 1962. Wayne Thiebaud's life-size depiction of a jackpot machine confronts us head-on. He had long been fascinated by their strangely human-like form. Rather than a specific model, Thiebaud imagined his own 'one-armed bandit', with its rounded coin-slot eye, money-shoot mouth and lever-arm raised up and ready to take on its players. The reels on his machine record an incomplete line, with a win tantalisingly out of reach. Thiebaud accentuates the Americanness of this icon of popular entertainment by painting it the red, white and blue of the American flag, complete with stars and stripes. It seems to embody the much-debated characterisation of this period in the United States as a golden age of economic optimism. Borrowed from : Smithsonian American Art Museum , Washington, D.C. Four Pinball Machines, 1962. Although associated with gambling and banned in some cities, pinball machines became an American phenomenon and were hugely popular across the country in the 1950s and 1960s. One of Wayne Thiebaud's most ambitious and complex works, this painting seems, at first glance, to be a straightforward depiction of an arcade of brightly coloured pinball machines waiting to be played. However, Thiebaud redesigned their square backglasses to recall recent developments in abstract painting, such as the squares of Frank Stella, the targets of Kenneth Noland and the grids of Ellsworth Kelly. In doing so, Thiebaud folded together contemporary art and popular culture, presenting both as modern entertainment. Borrowed from a Private collection. Courtesy Acquavella Galleries . Delicatessen Counter, 1962. Depicting the cheeses and baloney sausages on offer at a deli counter, Wayne Thiebaud painted so thickly that every brushstroke is accentuated. He explained that he wanted to emphasise different textures to explore 'what happens when the relationship between paint and subject matter comes as close together as I can possibly get them.' At the same time, Thiebaud liked how the obvious traces of the brush exposed what he called the 'trick' of painting itself. He also paid great attention to perfecting the calligraphy of the numbers on the price cards, a nod to his admiration for the skill of commercial artists, with whom he trained. Borrowed from : The Menil Collection , Houston.

Artist inspire one another. For example, according to the Van Gogh Museum, the artist "collected hundreds of Japanese prints. He started his collection when he lived in Paris with his brother Theo. He studied the prints and was convinced that the art of the future had to be colourful and joyous, just like Japanese printmaking." In the example below, Van Gogh meticulously traced the example of Hiroshige's print on a numbered grid. He used this to enlarge the composition to scale onto the canvas for his oil copy ( text by the British Museum ). By Utagawa Hiroshige: The plum Garden at Kameido, 1857 (exhibited at the British Museum*, London, 2025) By Vincent Van Gogh: Tracing of the Plum Garden at Kameido, c 1887. (Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam ). Same but Different aims to illustrate how stories inspire artists and how artists derive inspiration from life, as well as from the composition of subjects by their peers or mentors. Additionally, it explores the everyday connections that art inspires. The first example in the piece is a true intersection of culture, era, and artistic expression. In Shakespeare's Hamlet , Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius. She is the potential wife of the titular prince and meets a tragic fate when she loses her sanity and eventually drowns. *'Hiroshige: artist of the open road' exhibition ( 01 May – 07 September 2025). Shakespeare's Ophelia By John Everett Millais: Ophelia 1851-2. Found at Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom. This painting by Millais depicts the death of Ophelia. Traumatised by her family, her cancelled betrothal and the murder of her father by her fiancé, Ophelia drowns in a stream after roaming the countryside looking for flowers. John Everett Millais painted the setting leaf-by-leaf by the Hogsmill River in Surrey. Artist and model Elizabeth Siddal posed as Ophelia by wearing a wedding dress in a filled bathtub. Siddal and the other working-class women who joined the Pre-Raphaelite circle as colleagues, friends and wives challenged Victorian expectations of arranging marriages for money and status (text by Tate Britain) . By Tom Hunter: The Way Home, 2000. Seen at The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40 exhibition in London, United Kingdom (5 November 2025 - 1 March 2026). The Way Home takes inspiration from John Millais's Ophelia, showing a young girl whose journey home from one such rave was curtailed by falling into the canal and losing herself to the dark slippery, industrial motorway of a bygone era. Through the influence of Pre-Raphaelite artists and the intertwining of beauty and nature, Hunter has reinvestigated a maligned inner city landscape to create an unusual chronicle of contemporary, urban Britain (text by Saatchi Gallery) . The new-old Zeigeist: The Fate of Ophelia, song by Taylor Swift, 2025. Whilst the opening sequence in the song’s accompanying video may have been inspired by the Friedrich Heyser painting of Ophelia  (in the Wiesbaden Museum in Germany ), many think The   Life of a Showgirl  album cover reminiscent of Millais’s painting. (Swift’s album: Photographers  - Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott.) The Great Wave Major Collections Holding "The Great Wave": Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC, USA):  Holds several impressions. British Museum ( London, UK):  Has multiple prints, viewable in the Asia Department study room. Sumida Hokusai Museum  (Tokyo, Japan):  Dedicated to Hokusai, features replicas and sometimes originals. Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston  (USA):  Known for having seven impressions. Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), c 1830 - 32 . From Beyond the Great Wave: works by Hokusai , British Museum International Touring Exhibition in London, United Kingdom (21 October 2023 – 07 January 2024). The breathtaking composition of this woodblock print, said to have inspired - amongst others - Debussy’s La Mer (The Sea) and Rilke’s Der Berg (The Mountain), ensures its reputation as an icon of world art. Katsushika Hokusai cleverly played with perspective to make Japan’s grandest mountain appear as a small triangular mound within the hollow of the cresting wave. The artist became famous for his landscapes created using a palette of indigo and imported Prussian blue (text by The Metropolitan Museum) . Wave Too By Bill Jacklin: Wave II Seen at Royal Academy of Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2025 in London, United Kingdom. Though Jacklin does not specifically reference Hokusai, the vibe is unmistakable. Seating Plans...? L to R (desktop view) Van Gogh's Chair , 1888. Found at National Gallery, London, United Kingdom. One of Van Gogh's most iconic images. Painted soon after fellow artist Paul Gauguin had joined him in Arles in the south of France. The picture was to pair to another painting, Gauguin's Chair, 1888 - found at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. They were to be hung together, with one chair turned to the right, and the other to the left. Both chairs function as surrogate portraits, representing the personalities and distinct artistic outlooks of the two artists ( text by National Gallery, London ). By David Hockney: The Chair, 1985 (exhibited at LV Fondation, Paris ). Hockney held Van Gogh in high regard and often alluded to his art. The 1985 painting draws inspiration from Cubist influences, portraying a household object in an unconventional manner and using reverse perspective. Familiar Patterns By Roger Brown: Misty Morning, 1975. Found at Modern One, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Roger Brown uses gradual shifts in colour to create a sense of atmospheric perspective within the flat painted surface. In 1978 he explained the idea for Misty Morning came from driving through the hills of northern Alabama [USA], where it's awfully misty in the early morning or late evening and you see the hills get lighter and lighter.' The painting's gradual transition from dark to lighter tones creates the illusion of depth in the landscape, of receding mountains and disappearing car headlights. The painting's sharp style, colour palette, and decorative pattern were influenced by comic books, contemporary architecture, Byzantine mosaics, and late medieval painting ( text by Modern One ). The Everyday Though the text accompanying Brown’s artwork does not mention Japanese influence; the pattern on this Japanese plate is oddly similar. The plate features the traditional Seigaiha pattern, which translates to "blue sea and waves," is a classic geometric design of overlapping concentric semicircles. This example is from a great little casual Japanese restaurant called Konjiki located in Kensington Church Street, London, United Kingdom . Artist's Muse: Jane Morris Born Jane Burden, Morris came to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites in 1857. In 1859 she married William Morris, but shortly after began a long affair with Rossetti. Sharing a deep emotional attachment, Morris and Rossetti's relationship was the source of many of Rossetti's mid-to-late paintings, regarded by many as being among the best of his career. L to R (desktop view) The Day Dream, Study  (1878). Chalk drawing. Found at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford , United Kingdom. The Day Dream (1880). Oil on canvas. Found at Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom. Rossetti was also a poet, and the subject relates to his work of the same title which ends: She dreams; till now on her forgotten book Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand. La Ghirlandata  (1873). Found at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, United Kingdom. The model who sat for the painting was Alexa Wilding.   May Morris - daughter of Jane and William Morris - was the model for both angel heads in the top corners of the painting. Proserpine  (1874). Found at Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom. This painting captures the moment after the goddess Proserpine bites into a pomegranate. Imprisoned in the underworld, she is lit by a beam of sunlight from the world above. According to Roman legend, Hades, the God of the Underworld, stole and imprisoned Proserpine. Because she ate six pomegranate seeds while captive, he curses her to remain in the underworld for six months of every year. The model was Dante Gabriel Rossetti's friend Jane Morris, whom he painted repeatedly in his later years. He was working on an eighth version of Proserpine in the month of his death. Sunflowers & Bedrooms Sunflowers x 7 Vincent Van Gogh made multiple versions of paintings of Sunflowers. Five are now found at museums all around the world, from Tokyo to Amsterdam. In addition to these five famous versions of Sunflowers , he painted another two versions. One is in private hands, and the other painting was unfortunately lost during World War II. The sunflower pictures were among the first paintings Van Gogh produced in Arles that show his signature expressive style. Top row: L - R (desktop view) Sunflowers, 1888. Found in National Gallery, London, United Kingdom. "The sunflower is mine', Van Gogh once declared. The different stages in the sunflower’s life cycle shown here, from young bud through to maturity and eventual decay, follow in the vanitas tradition of Dutch seventeenth-century flower paintings, which emphasise the transient nature of human actions. The sunflowers were perhaps also intended to be a symbol of friendship and a celebration of the beauty and vitality of nature. Van Gogh made the paintings to decorate his house in Arles in readiness for a visit from his friend and fellow artist, Paul Gauguin ( text by National Gallery, London ). Sunflowers, 1889 . Found in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. With nothing more than three tints of yellow, he achieved a colour harmony that shimmers like a vision (text by Van Gogh Museum). Sunflowers, 1889 . Exhibited at National Gallery London (2025). Found at P hiladelphia Museum of Art, USA . The Mr & Mrs Caroll S. Tyson Collection. Bedroom x 3 Vincent van Gogh so highly esteemed his bedroom painting that he made three distinct versions: the first, now in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; the second, belonging to the Art Institute of Chicago, painted a year later on the same scale and almost identical; and a third, smaller canvas in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, which he made as a gift for his mother and sister. Van Gogh conceived the first Bedroom in October 1888, a month after he moved into his “Yellow House” in Arles, France. This moment marked the first time the artist had a home of his own, and he had immediately and enthusiastically set about decorating, painting a suite of canvases to fill the walls. Completely exhausted from the effort, he spent two-and-a-half days in bed and was then inspired to create a painting of his bedroom. As he wrote to his brother Theo: “It amused me enormously doing this bare interior. With a simplicity à la Seurat. In flat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the walls pale lilac, the floor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood-red, the dressing-table orange, the washbasin blue, the window green. I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different tones.” Although the picture symbolized relaxation and peace to the artist, to our eyes the canvas seems to teem with nervous energy, instability, and turmoil, an effect heightened by the sharply receding perspective (text by the Art Institute of Chicago) . Bottom row: L to R (desktop view) The Bedroom, 1888.  Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. The first of the bedroom paintings. "When I saw my canvases again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was the bedroom". (Van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo). The Bedroom, 1889 . Found at Art Institute of Chicago, USA (exhibited in National Gallery London 2025). La Chambre de Van Gogh a Arles, 1889 . Found at Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France. This was produced for his family in Holland. Friendly inspiration By Adrian Berg: Gloucester Gate, Regent's Park, February, March, April, May and June, 1977. Adrian Seen at Frieze London (UK). Adrian Berg is one of the most innovative and ultimately influential landscape painters of his generation. Despite this, he has often been overlooked and under appreciated outside the circle of those he inspired or taught. During his time at the Royal College of Art, he met fellow student David Hockney. In Hockney, Berg found a close friend and someone who appreciated both the significance of culture (Berg introduced Hockney to the poetry of Cavafy and Whitman, which inspired many of Hockney’s early etchings) and the importance of painting. The friendship and mutual respect between Adrian Berg and David Hockney lasted a lifetime, with both frequently citing each other as influences—particularly in their depiction and reinterpretation of the English landscape. Hockney delivered the eulogy at Berg’s memorial dinner at the Royal Academy of Arts on London’s Piccadilly in 2011. David Seen at David Hockney 25 Exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France (9 April to 1 September 2025). Bigger Trees nearer Warter, Winte r (2008). Collection of the Artist . Bigger Trees nearer Warter, Summer (2008). Collection of the Artist. Bigger Trees near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique (2007). Now found at Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom. These are not the droids you are looking for… By Jacob Epstein: Torso in Metal from ‘The Rock Drill’, 1913-15. Found at Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom. Epstein began this sculpture in a period when artists in the Vorticist and Futurist movements were exploring the dynamic artistic potential of mechanisation. The original sculpture, first exhibited alongside works by Vorticist artists at the London Group exhibition of 1915, was a plaster figure mounted on top of a commercial rock drill. He later described it as ‘a machine-like robot, visored, menacing, and carrying within itself its progeny... the armed sinister figure of to-day and to-morrow: After the machines of the First World War killed millions of people, Epstein removed the drill, cut the figure down at the waist and chopped off the left hand and right arm and cast it in bronze. This newly truncated figure now looks more vulnerable, a victim rather than a perpetrator of violence ( text by Tate Britain ). Meanwhile, in a galaxy far away... “Roger, Roger!” B1 Series Rocket Battle Droid (from Star Wars). Doug Chiang led the concept design, incorporating ideas from Lucasfilm and focusing on a skeletal, cheap, and numerous infantry unit. Juxtaposition Walking on sunshine... Plein Air Located in the Giacometti Court at Fondation Maeght . The two versions of The Walking Man held by the Maeght Foundation are exceptional works, because, instead of a patina, the bronzes are painted by Alberto Giacometti. Animé Seen at Royal Academy of Academy of Arts  Summer Exhibition 2025 in London, United Kingdom. The 2024 artwork’s title as printed! And it is by Glen Baxter. He is an English draughtsman and artist known for his absurdist drawings, often combining pulp fiction and adventure comic aesthetics with intellectual humour and references to art and philosophy. Here , Baxter uses Giacometti as a recognizable, yet incongruous, element to heighten the absurdity and wit in his unique artistic universe. He calls it “artrustling”. L🎈L By Marcel Duchamp: L.H.O.O.Q., 1964 (replica of 1919 original). Seen at Frieze London (UK), 2025. In 1919, Duchamp performed a seemingly adolescent prank using a postcard that represented the ideal of feminine beauty, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa . He drew a mustache and goatee on her face and added the letters "L.H.O.O.Q." The caption combines Duchamp's gleeful sense of wit with his love of wordplay: eliding the letters in French sounds like, "Elle a chaud au cul" ("There is fire down below"). The image trespasses traditional boundaries of appropriation by presenting a reproduction, however tarted up, as an original work of art. The masculinized female introduces the theme of gender reversal, which was popular with Duchamp, who adopted his own female pseudonym, Rrose Sélavy, pronouced "Eros, c'est la vie" ("Eros, that's life"). La Joconde instantly became his most famous readymade and a symbol for the international Dada movement, which rebelled against everything that art represented, particularly the appeal to tradition and beauty. The term "rectified and readymade" indicates that the artist has altered a found, mass-produced object. (Text by Norton Simon Museum). The original by Leonardo da Vinci is in the Louvre. Known as the Mona Lisa, it is a Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, Wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Reflections In 1964, Hockney visited California for the first time. The trip was a great source of inspiration, leading to a series a stylised landscapes and the first swimming pool paintings for which Hockney is best known. He mastered capturing the shimmering, complex patterns of water's surface and the way light plays on it, using swirling lines and bold colours. The pool series solidified his status as a leading Pop artist, celebrated for their bright colors and focus on everyday modern life. The rich symbolism and psychological meaning associated with water and pools in Hockney's work continues to influence contemporary artists. Examples include those exploring gender dynamics or racial inequalities through the motif. By Cheen Fuen SEOW: California Dreaming, 2024. Here’s a personal favourite of all who have been inspired by Hockney’s pool series. It’s a humble print, 1 of 90 from an artist from Southeast Asia. Seow merges elements from various artistic traditions with digital tools that bridge traditional and contemporary art. His work explores cultural identities, artistic conventions, and the ever evolving nature of art in a globalised society, inviting the audience to examine the depth of his creations. Seen at Royal Academy of Academy of Arts  Summer Exhibition 2025 in London, United Kingdom By David Hockney: A Bigger Splash, 1967. Found at Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom. With just a few lines and flat areas of color, Hockney produced a smooth, intriguing image, set within a raw canvas border that in 1967, brought to mind the format of the recently launched Polaroid. A dive has happened. An invisible protagonist is thus visible in the center of the image, which became one of the artist’s most recognizable works, the embodiment of his Californian years. The work first came to Paris for the exhibition that the Musée des Arts Décoratifs devoted to David Hockney in 1974. On that occasion, he said that this work was part of a series, and that, ‘Bigger’ refers to the size of the painting not the splash.” By David Hockney: Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972. Private Collection . The standing figure is often interpreted as Hockney's former lover Peter Schlesinger. This work sold at Christie’s auction in New York City for $90.3 million, setting an auction record for a living artist.

The Long Now: Saatchi Gallery at 40 An extraordinary group exhibition honouring the London Gallery's dedication to contemporary art. It features special commissions, immersive installations, paintings, and sculptures - a sensory feast and occasionally a startling experience. Visit Saatchi Gallery's website for more information. The Saatchi Gallery as the backdrop. And the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity installation of 30,000 white roses creating the Ever After Garden. (November 2025) The Long Now Exhibition from: 05.11.2025 to 01.03.2026 (ticketed) Located on 1 & 2 floors Tube : Sloane Square (District & Circle Lines) Essentials : Typically, there are free exhibitions on the ground floor. Adequate restrooms. No cafe in the Gallery itself but lots of eateries within a short walking distance. Check out Duke of York Square. Selected Artworks from the Exhibition The exhibition covers two floors and has a really cool and varied mix of stuff. Here are some pieces that I personally found interesting. But this is just a small part of what's there. You might find other things that catch your eye in a different way. Frau am Tisch mit Früchten - Matisse, 2024 By André Butzer (b. 1973, Stuttgart, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. His work is characterised by a fusion of European Expressionism and American ready-made pop culture. With influences ranging from Paul Cézanne to Walt Disney, Butzer has developed an elaborate fictitious universe. The conceptual repetition and seeming seriality of his iconic characters speak to his continuous enquiry into societal contradictions and social non-conformity. Frau am Tisch mit Früchten-Matisse presents a single woman's head amidst a vast red interior with dispersed Mediterranean fruits coming in and out of appearance. In this cyclical process of passing and returning, nothing is lost. Everything is accommodated in the complete existence of the image, in which everything that was, is and will be, is present at the same time. In this temporal coherence, even the fruits are cyclically rounded in themselves and embody new beginnings - maturing, rebirth and renewed ripening. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) Casa Tomada (House Taken), 2019 Resin, fibreglass, wood, screen-cotton, rope, sand. and Gerreión coal By Kalael Gomezoaros (born 1972 Santa Marta, Colombia). The artist addresses the fragilty of the human condition and the history of violence in his native Colombia. Since its conception in 2008, Casa Tomada (House Taken) has been exhibited across the world - first displayed at Saatchi Gallery in Pangaea, (2014). It's title references the 1946 short story by Argentinian author Juio Cortázar, in which a house is gradually taken over, prompting the occupants to flee. Central to the artist's work is migration and forced displacement of human beings, originally made in response to the Colombian Civil War, Gómezbarros fashioned the ant bodies from casts of human skulls, which are covered with Colombian sand and bound together using strips of cotton from T-shirts, commonty worn by Colombian farm workers. The ant legs are made from the wragrant branches of the Jasmine tree. during the civil war, such branches were used to mask the smell of the bodies victims. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) The Long Now, 2025 By Martine Poppe (b. 1988, Oslo, Norway). Martine lives and works between London and Oslo. Her works emerge from the interplay of different materials, negotiating the boundaries between abstraction and representation. Climate is central to her subject matter, and her process often begins with photographs of nature that she digitally manipulates until they verge on becoming illegible. Translating these digital sketches to paintings with quick, regular strokes, Poppe's tactile surfaces capture the fragile and fleeting qualities of diffracted light, overexposure and the pixelation of blown-up digital images. She creates meditative spaces that feel simultaneously personal and universal, engaging both memory and imagination. Her work draws from photographs taken over the past decade, maintaining extensive archives of photographs which she revisits and edits. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) Omni, 2024 By Michael Raedecker (b. 1963, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Michael seeks to make sense of the symbiotic and often parasitic relationship between nature and humanity - to understand our place in the world and draw attention to the proximity and power of nature in relation to the urban environment. Driven by craft and method as much as by imagery, Raedecker blends painting with richly textural embroidery to create his mixed-media works. The compositions he builds hold the urban in an uneasy balance with nature, which creeps and sprawls across the canvas, over open car doors, solitary sun loungers, and vacant pools. His paintings deal with the presence, but visual absence, of us in relation to our environment; the suburban setting where the landscape meets man-made dwellings. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) YARD Allan Kaprow's Yard marks a seminal moment in the history of contemporary culture. Advocating the blurring of art and life, in 1961 the American artist filled a New York courtyard with piles of discarded tyres, transforming the space into an artwork (an 'environment') and inviting visitors to climb, shift, and move through the work. Kaprow re-invented Yard and his other environments multiple times throughout his career until his passing in 2006. Here its 9th version, originally conceived in Italy in 2003 and including tences as architectural elements, is given a new reading in dialogue with monumental works by two important British artists. Hovering above, Conrad Shawcross's Golden Lotus (Inverted) , originally presented at Saatchi Gallery in 2019, rotates and resonates with MYLO's original soundtrack, serving as a vertical counterpoint to the field of tyres below and creating an interplay between its moving shadows and the participating audience. At the same time, Christopher Le Brun's vast canvas (not in the frame), Tristan , extends the dialogue into the realm of painting. Its dark, immersive surface evokes both landscape and interiority. Acting as a silent yet powerful presence, it further expands the tension between gravity and elevation within this space. Together these works form a distinctive and powerful meditation on immersion and transformation, generating an entirely new environment to explore the relationship between experience and image. They invite you to be a part of the installation, creating a sensory experience that is less about looking and more about being. "This spontaneous piece takes a flawed British supercar, conceived against a backdrop of extremely tumultuous economic times, as an iconic symbol of 1980s decadence and literally inverts it - transforming it into a joyful, irreverent act of rebellion against status quos." - Conrad Shawcross ( Curated by Philippa Adams and Piero Tomassoni. Saatchi Gallery ) The Way Home, 2000 By Tom Hunter (b. 1965, Dorset, UK). Tom is a London-based British artist working in photography and film. Hunter explores themes depicting his local neighbourhood of East London, drawing on art historical references. Hunter's series Life and Death in Hackney, 1991-2001, creates a melancholic beauty out of the post-industrial decay where the wild buddleia and sub-cultural inhabitants take root and bloom. The somewhat abandoned areas became epicentres of the new warehouse rave scene of the early 90's. The Way Home takes inspiration from John Millais's Ophelia , showing a young girl whose journey home from one such rave was curtailed by falling into the canal and losing herself to the dark slippery, industrial motorway of a bygone era. Through the influence of Pre-Raphaelite artists and the intertwining of beauty and nature, Hunter has reinvestigated a maligned inner city landscape to create an unusual chronicle of contemporary, urban Britain. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) Fun note: Taylor Swift’s The Fate of Ophelia may have also taken inspiration from Millais's Ophelia . Ballad for Water, 2025 By Ryan Mosley (b. 1980, Chesterfield, UK) . Ryan is a narrative painter based in Sheffield. Mosley uses pictorial cues - from beards, to brick walls and top hats - as triggers for art historical reference, class commentary, and pure formalism. The boat has been a recurring motif for Mosley in recent years, itself an evolution of the stage motif that remains a common setting in his paintings. As a mode of transport, it traverses time, rendering this scene in no fixed era or locale. It also enables the marriage of two long running themes in the artist's work; journeying and performance. Although we might discern from their number that the musicians may be the cargo of this vessel, we cannot conclude their origin, destination or broader identity and so they also sit astride history. Timeless in their garb and melodic practice. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) Aren’t the colours reminiscent of a Hockney? Can you spot the Jenny Saville? Her work in the first photo (spot it the far end of the gallery) is titled Passage (2004). A work that must be seen rather than reposted either in print or online. It holds both strength and beauty, and paradigmatically realises the artist’s ambition to “be a painter of modern life, and modern bodies”. (Saville, quoted in Rachel Cooke,  The Observer , 9 June 2012). Born in 1970 in Cambridge, England, Saville attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1988 to 1992, spending a term at the University of Cincinnati in 1991. In her depictions of the human form, Jenny Saville transcends the boundaries of both classical figuration and modern abstraction. 20:50 Richard Wilson's 20:50 returns with renewed force to Saatchi Gallery, presented for the first time on the Gallery's top floor. At first glance, the surface appears mirror-like, turning the room into a vast optical illusion. Originally created in 1987 and now considered one of Britain's most iconic installations, 20:50 holds up a reflection of ourselves and the world we inhabit. In today's climate crisis, this room, filled with recycled sump oil (the thick black engine oil drained from vehicle engines becomes a meditation on consumption and environmental uncertainty. Its title refers to the grade of the oil itself, but the experience it creates is far from industrial, prompting us to consider the coexistence of material excess and ecological fragility in the reality we live in today. 20:50 gathers the themes of the exhibition into one immersive encounter. The still surface captures a tension between presence and absence, beauty and unease, inviting us to pause within a moment of disorientation and reflection. Like the exhibition as a whole, Wilson's work reminds us that art does not simply record its time but unsettles it, offering new ways of seeing ourselves and our future. It is both an ending and a beginning - a space to reflect on forty years of the Gallery's history while looking ahead to the possibilities that lie beyond. ( Text by Saatchi Gallery ) (Updated November 2025)

Bold, uplifting, sincere, passionate, authentic, unfiltered, vibrant. Experiencing a Van Gogh art work is not merely seeing it; it is a profoundly moving encounter. Below are selected works and where you can find them in various museums: Self Portraits There are over 35 self-portraits. He created the majority of them in the last four years of his life (1886 to 1889) using them as practice portraiture and to explore different artistic styles. Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889. Found at The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London, United Kingdom. This famous painting, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh, expresses his artistic power and personal struggles. Van Gogh painted it in January 1889, a week after leaving hospital. He had received treatment there after cutting off most of his left ear (shown here as the bandaged right ear because he painted himself in a mirror). This self-mutilation was a desperate act committed a few weeks earlier, following a heated argument with his fellow painter Paul Gauguin who had come to stay with him in Arles, in the south of France. Van Gogh returned from hospital to find Gauguin gone and with him, the dream of setting up a ‘studio of the south’, where like-minded artists could share ideas and work side by side. The fur cap Van Gogh wears in this painting is a reminder of the harsh working conditions he faced in January 1889: the hat was a recent purchase to secure his thick bandage in place and to ward off the winter cold. This self-portrait is thus powerful proof of Van Gogh’s determination to continue painting. It is reinforced by the objects behind him, which take on a symbolic meaning: a canvas on an easel, just begun, and a Japanese print, an important source of inspiration. Above all, it is Van Gogh’s powerful handling of colour and brushwork that declare his ambition as a painter (text by the Courtauld) . Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat,1887 Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Van Gogh painted this self-portrait in the winter of 1887–88, when he had been in Paris for almost two years. It is clear from the work that he had studied the technique of the Pointillists and applied it in his own, original way. He placed the short stripes of paint in different directions. Where they follow the outline of his head, they form a kind of halo. The painting is also one of Van Gogh’s boldest colour experiments in Paris. He placed complementary colours alongside one another using long brushstrokes: blue and orange in the background, and red and green in the beard and eyes. The colours intensify one another. The red pigment has faded, so the purple strokes are now blue, which means the contrast with the yellow is less powerful (text by Van Gogh Museum). Self-Portrait with Pipe and Straw Hat, 1887 Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This sketchy self-portrait is an example of the amazingly rapid progress Van Gogh made in Paris. The summery palette and loose brushwork betray the influence of the Impressionists. The smock, hat and background consist of large, outlined areas of colour. The face and beard are built up in more detail using different tones. Van Gogh was practising painting portraits. Because models were expensive, he bought a good mirror and used himself as his subject. He later wrote to his brother Theo: 'because if I can manage to paint the coloration of my own head, which is not without presenting some difficulty, I'll surely be able to paint the heads of the other fellows and women as well.' Self-Portrait, 1889 Found at Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France. Like Rembrandt and Goya, Vincent van Gogh often used himself as a model; he produced over forty-three self-portraits, paintings or drawings in ten years. Like the old masters, he observed himself critically in a mirror. Painting oneself is not an innocuous act: it is a questioning which often leads to an identity crisis. Thus he wrote to his sister: "I am looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer." And later to his brother: "People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to paint yourself, either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more than a view of nature, they are more like a revelation". In this head-and-shoulders view, the artist is wearing a suit and not the pea jacket he usually worked in. Attention is focused on the face. His features are hard and emaciated, his green-rimmed eyes seem intransigent and anxious. The dominant colour, a mix of absinth green and pale turquoise finds a counterpoint in its complementary colour, the fiery orange of the beard and hair. The model's immobility contrasts with the undulating hair and beard, echoed and amplified in the hallucinatory arabesques of the background (text by Musée d'Orsay). Self-Portrait with a Japanese Print, 1887 Found at Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland. Not much text accompanies this painting at the Kunstmuseum except for " Deposit of the Dr. h.c. Emile Dreyfus-Stiftung, 1970”. Vincent van Gogh collected hundreds of Japanese prints. He started his collection when he lived in Paris with his brother Theo. He studied the prints and was convinced that the art of the future had to be colourful and joyous, just like Japanese printmaking. Some of which are represented below. Japanese Influence "If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? He studies a single blade of grass." Vincent Van Gogh, 1888 in a letter to his brother Theo. In Van Gogh’s letters, it is clear that Japan held magical, mystical significance for him. In his imagination, the Land of the Rising Sun was a fountainhead of grace and well-being, a blessed utopia. Flowering Plum Orchard (after Hiroshige), 1887 Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Van Gogh copied this depiction of a plum orchard in bloom at sunset from a woodcut in his collection. He did, however, take some liberties in his use of colour. He replaced the black and grey of the monumental tree trunk in the foreground with red and blue tints. Van Gogh also introduced the ornamental orange borders with Japanese characters solely to create a decorative and ‘exotic’ effect ( text by Van Gogh Museum ). The Courtesan (after Eisen), 1887. Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Van Gogh reproduced a print by Keisai Eisen that appeared in Paris illustré in 1886. Van Gogh used bright, contrasting colours and added a border with aquatic creatures and plants (text by Van Gogh Museum ). The Flowers Irissen, 1890 Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Van Gogh painted this still life in the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy. For him, the painting was mainly a study in colour. He set out to achieve a powerful colour contrast. By placing the purple flowers against a yellow background, he made the decorative forms stand out even more strongly. The irises were originally purple. But as the red pigment has faded, they have turned blue. Van Gogh made two paintings of this bouquet. In the other still life, he contrasted purple and pink with green (text by Van Gogh Museum) . Almond Blossom, 1890 Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Large blossom branches like this against a blue sky were one of Van Gogh’s favourite subjects. Almond trees flower early in the spring making them a symbol of new life. Van Gogh borrowed the subject, the bold outlines and the positioning of the tree in the picture plane from Japanese printmaking. The painting was a gift for his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo, who had just had a baby son, Vincent Willem. In the letter announcing the new arrival, Theo wrote: ‘As we told you, we’ll name him after you, and I’m making the wish that he may be as determined and as courageous as you.’ Unsurprisingly, it was this work that remained closest to the hearts of the Van Gogh family. Vincent Willem went on to found the Van Gogh Museum. Roses et Anemones, 1890 Found at Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France. Sometimes titled Japanese Vase with Roses and Anemones. The combination of Japanese aesthetics and the artist’s unique approach illustrates van Gogh’s exploration and synthesis of different influences, making it a noteworthy representation of Post-Impressionist sensibilities. His world Van Gogh revolutionised his style in a symphony of poetic colour and texture. He was inspired by poets, writers and artists. His desire to tell stories produced a drawings of poetic imagination and romantic love on an ambitious scale. Left to Right (list below, sequence viewed on desktop) Row 1: A Wheatfield with Cypresses, 1889 . (Found at National Gallery London. V an Gogh painted several versions of during the summer of 1889, while he was a patient in the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Paul de Mausole, in the village of St-Rémy in the south of France. A first version, which he described as a study, was painted on site in late June 1889. The National Gallery’s painting, which was completed in September while Van Gogh was confined to his hospital room, is the finished version. He also made a smaller copy of it for his mother and sister. The landscape includes typically Provençal motifs such as a golden wheat field, tall evergreen cypresses, an olive bush and a backdrop of the blue Alpilles mountains. Van Gogh wrote of painting outdoors during the summer mistral, the strong, cold wind of southern France, which here seems to animate the entire landscape. Everything is depicted with powerful rhythmic lines and swirling brushstrokes that convey Van Gogh’s sense of nature’s vitality ( text by National Gallery London ). De tuin van de inrichting in Saint-Rémy, May 1889. Translated - The Garden of the Asylum at Saint-Rémy. (Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands). For The garden of the asylum at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh chooses an unusual viewpoint, next to the wall of the hospital. Due to the diagonal path with a stone bench, the painting acquires a particularly spatial effect. The exuberantly flowering bushes and trees are depicted in a tangle of thickly painted brushstrokes. Despite the huge variety of shapes and colours, the composition has both depth and structure. The meaning of colours In September of the previous year, Van Gogh writes from Arles to his sister Wil about what the colours mean to him: ‘We need good cheer and happiness, hope and love. The uglier, older, meaner, iller, poorer I get, the more I wish to take my revenge by doing brilliant colour, well arranged, resplendent’ (text by Kröller-Müller Museum). Row 2: The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles, 1889 . (Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from The Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Oskar Reinhart Collection.) The artwork depicts part of the arcaded cloister-like courtyard with its colourful enclosed garden. The male patients were housed on the upper level, on the right in the painting. ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur. Translated - Landscape at Twilight, 1890 . (Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.) Row 3: The Harvest, 1888. (Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) You can almost feel the dryness and heat in this painting of the flat landscape around Arles in the south of France. Van Gogh combined the azure blue of the sky with yellow and green tones for the land to capture the atmosphere of a summer’s day. He worked in the wheatfields for days at a time under the burning sun. This was an immensely productive period, in which he completed ten paintings and five drawings in just over a week, until a heavy storm brought the harvest season to an end. Van Gogh wanted to show peasant life and work on the land – a recurring theme in his art – and painted several stages of the harvest. We see a half mowed wheatfield, ladders and several carts. A reaper works in the background, which is why he titled the work La moisson or 'The Harvest'. Van Gogh considered it one of his most successful paintings, writing to his brother Theo that the ‘canvas absolutely kills all the rest’ ( text by Van Gogh Museum ). L’église d’Auvers-sur-Oise, vue du chevet, 1890 . Translated -The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet. (Found at Musée d'Orsay, Paris). After his stay in the south of France, first in Arles and then at the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Vincent van Gogh settled in Auvers-sur-Oise, a village near Paris. His brother Theo, worried about his health, encouraged him to see Dr. Gachet, himself a painter, who agreed to treat him. During the two months between his arrival in Auvers on May 21, 1890, and his death on July 29, the artist produced approximately seventy canvases, more than one a day, and numerous drawings. This painting is the only one Vincent van Gogh dedicated to the church in Auvers. This church, built in the 13th century in the early Gothic style, flanked by two Romanesque chapels, becomes, under the artist's brush, a flamboyant monument that seems ready to collapse under the pressure of the ground and the two paths that enclose it. Comparing this painting with Claude Monet's Cathedrals , painted shortly afterward, reveals the differences between van Gogh's approach and that of the Impressionists. Unlike Monet, he does not seek to capture the interplay of light on the monument. Even though the church remains recognizable, the canvas offers the viewer less a faithful image of reality than a form of its "expression." The artistic techniques employed by van Gogh foreshadow the work of the Fauves and the Expressionist painters ( text by Musée d'Orsay ). Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889 . (Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from The Armand Hammer Collection, Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.) Van Gogh chose a vertical format to give full height to the massive pine trees that dwarfed the male wing of the hospital building. The reddish soil, highly stylised tree trunks and interlocking branches overhead produce a vibrant but oppressive environment within which Van Gogh arranges a number of figures, including perhaps himself, just left of centre. The women are an invention; female patients were not allowed in this part of the grounds ( text by National Gallery, London. ) Row 4: Tree Trunks in the Grass,1890. (Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from Kröller-Mülier Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands.) Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint-Pierre, 1887. (Found at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Van Gogh called this sunny park scene 'the painting of the garden with lovers'. Couples in love are strolling under the young chestnut trees and sitting along the winding paths. He used a free variation on the technique of the Pointillists. They built up their compositions from dots of paint. Van Gogh instead applied small brushstrokes of varying length in different directions. This helped him to create the effect of a radiant spring day, which fit the sense of intimacy and togetherness he wished to express. He too longed for a wife and a family, but he had 'the most impossible love affairs'. He eventually resigned himself to the situation; he was devoted to his art ( text by Van Gogh Museum ). Row 5: La Méridienne, entre 1889 et 1890. Translated - The Siesta (Found at Musée d'Orsay, Paris). T he Siesta was painted while Van Gogh was interned in a mental asylum in Saint-Rémy de Provence. The composition is taken from a drawing by Millet for Four Moments in the Day. To justify his act, Vincent told his brother Theo: “I am using another language, that of colours, to translate the impressions of light and dark into black and white”. Van Gogh often copied the works of Millet, whom he considered to be “a more modern painter than Manet”. Remaining faithful to the original composition, even down to the still life details in the foreground, Van Gogh nevertheless imposes his own style upon this restful scene which, for Millet, symbolized rural France of the 1860’s. This highly personal retranscription is achieved primarily by means of a chromatic construction based on contrasting complementary colours: blue-violet, yellow-orange. Despite the peaceful nature of the subject, the picture radiates Van Gogh’s unique artistic intensity (text by Musée d'Orsay ) . The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy),1889. ( Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund, 1947.) Vincent van Gogh painted this autumnal landscape while living at an asylum near Saint-Rémy in southern France where he was treated for severe depression (t ext by National Gallery London ). Row 6 Chaumes de Cordeville à Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890 . Translated -Thatched Cottages at Cordeville in Auvers-sur-Oise. (Found at Musée d'Orsay, Paris). This was painted during the most frenetic creative period of the artist’s career, a few weeks before his tragic end. Van Gogh left Provence in May 1890, at the end of his voluntary stay at the Saint-Rémy asylum. He settled in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris. On June 10, he wrote to his brother Théo that he was “making two studies of houses in the countryside”. Corot, Daubigny, Pissarro and Cézanne had already evoked the peaceful charm of Auvers. Van Gogh, for his part, would transform it into a volcanic land where the houses seemed twisted by an earthquake ( text by Musée d'Orsay) . Mountains at Saint-Rémy, 1889. (Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978.) During the years preceding his suicide in 1890, Vincent van Gogh suffered increasingly frequent attacks of mental distress, the cause of which remains unclear. Mountains at Saint-Rémy was painted in July 1889, when Van Gogh was recovering from just such an episode at the hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in the southern French town of Saint-Rémy. The painting represents the Alpilles, a low range of mountains visible from the hospital grounds. In it, Van Gogh activated the terrain and sky with the heavy impasto and bold, broad brushstrokes characteristic of his late work ( text by National Gallery London ). Starry Night over Rhône , 1888 Exhibited at National Gallery London in Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Loan from Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Donation of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kahn-Sriber, in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Fernand Moch, 1975. From the moment of his arrival in Arles, on 8 February 1888, Van Gogh was constantly preoccupied with the representation of “night effects”. In April 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo: “I need a starry night with cypresses or maybe above a field of ripe wheat.” In June, he confided to the painter Emile Bernard: “But when shall I ever paint the Starry Sky, this painting that keeps haunting me” and, in September, in a letter to his sister, he evoked the same subject: “Often it seems to me night is even more richly coloured than day”, During the same month of September, he finally realised his obsessive project. He first painted a corner of nocturnal sky in Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles (Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Muller). Next came this view of the Rhône in which he marvellously transcribed the colours he perceived in the dark. Blues prevail: Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt. The city gas lights glimmer an intense orange and are reflected in the water. The stars sparkle like gemstones (text by National Gallery London ). His Sunflowers, Chairs and Bedroom paintings will be featured in a separate blog: “Same but Different” .

Exploring art often makes one hungry. Any art enthusiast understands that museum cafes can get very crowded, particularly during sold-out exhibitions. Additionally, some art galleries might not offer on-site dining options. The Random Nosh List (#randomnoshlist) provides a selection of convenient and dependable nearby dining spots. Read below for where to find nosh around: Saatchi Gallery (Duke of York Square), SW3 Tate Modern, SE1 Tate Britain, SW1 Saatchi Gallery neighbourhood The west London Contemporary Art Gallery is a four minute walk from Sloane Square Tube (Circle & District Lines). It dominates the Duke of York Square, a chic shopping destination in the heart of Chelsea. It does not have a cafe within it's premises. The nearest eateries within the Duke of York Square are listed below. Visit the interactive map for more information. Duke of York Square, 80 King's Road, London The Penny Black - breakfast, brunch and coffee. Comptior Libanais - a reliable chain offering diners flavours of the Middle East and North Africa. Läderach - luxury chocolates. Polpo - Venetian inspired with small plates options. Manicomio - modern Italian. Cafe Linea - Restaurant, bar, bakery with terrace overlooking the greenery of the square. Vardo - all day breakfast to dinner menu. Prime location by King’s Road yet overlooking the wide spaces of the square. The Chelsea Groce r - independent grocery store with a deli. SoHo Home Studio - small cafe on ground floor For a casual unfussy option, the nearby Peter Jones Department Store has: The Café by Benugo : a sandwich and coffee outlet on the 2nd floor The Top Floor Restaurant : a spacious self service restaurant on 6th floor. More importantly, it has public restrooms! Art books Aside from the Saatchi Gallery Shop , nearby bookstores with an excellent offering of Art books: John Sandoe Books : a glorious independent bookstore since 1957. (2 minute walk) Taschen: Art and design books. (1 minute walk). For the energetic explorer intending to add shopping to the agenda, then the King's Road is also dotted with pubs, cafes and restaurants in between trendy labels. Tate Modern & Britain: Riverside vibe Views from Level 10, Tate Modern TATE MODERN Tube : Blackfriars (Circle and District Lines), 8 minute walk. Southwark (Jubilee Line), 11 minute Walk National Rail : Blackfrairs (Thameslink and Southeastern) (museum is 300m from South exit.) Within Tate Modern Riverside Terrace , River entrance. Pizza, Beer, Cocktails, Sodas. Corner , 1st Floor, Natalie Bell Building. Food, Drinks, Music, until late on Tuesdays to Saturdays. Expresso Bar , 3rd Floor, Natalie Bell Building. Coffee, Cake, Tea. Temporarily closed at the time of writing. (December 2025) Restaurant and Bar , 6th Floor, Natalie Bell Building. Modern British cuisine. Level 10 , 10th Floor, Natalie Bell Building. Hot & Cold Drinks, Snacks. Members: Level 1 Members Bar , 1st Floor, Blavatnik Building. Drinks and seasonal lunch menu. Saturdays and Sundays. Granville-Grossman Bar , 5th Floor, Natalie Bell Building. Drinks & seasonal lunch menu. Until late on Fridays and Saturdays. Please check Tate Modern Website for opening times and if certain spaces are closed for events. Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Nearby Tate Modern with riverside views Founder's Arms: Pub serving quintessentially British Pub Beer and food. And of course Sunday roasts. (3 minute walk) Pizza Express No explanation needed! A Pizza & pasta joint. (6 minute walk) Swan London : Linked to the Globe Theatre and offering views of the Thames. Casual bar food or more formal dining upstairs. Has an afternoon tea menu and a venue for private parties with river views. (6 minute walk) Zizzi Bankside : A chain of Italian-inspired restaurants, known for serving dishes like fresh pasta and crispy pizzas in a warm, rustic environment. (7 minute walk) Bankside view: Underside of nearby Blackfriars Railway Bridge…an artwork in itself! TATE BRITAIN Tube : Pimlico (Victoria Line), 9 minute walk. Victoria (Circle and District Lines), 19 minute walk. National Rail : Victoria (Southern, Southeastern & Gatwick Express), as above. Within Tate Britain A coffered glass dome, designed by Sidney R. J. Smith. Djanogly Café , lower ground floor. Sandwiches, Salads, Cakes, Hot & Cold Drinks. Plus a seasonal lunch menu. Members: Members Room , in the Rotunda. Sandwiches, Salads, Cakes, Hot & Cold Drinks. It too has a seasonal lunch menu. Around Tate Britain Morpeth Arms : Traditional Pub serving Young's ales. Built in 1845 and patronised by prison wardens from the then nearby Millbank Penitentiary, it is rumoured to have a "haunted" former cell corridor". It also has an upstairs venue space named "Spying Room" as it overlooks the MI6 building (SIS Building). (3 minute walk) Cafe Society : Italian cafe bistro serving Breakfast and Lunch and in-betweens until 7pm. (5 minute walk). If walking from Victoria Station, there are many Nosh options in and around Victoria: Check out the following areas and streets: Cardinal Place Shopping Centre Churton Street (special mention: Grumbles for British/French classics) Market Halls Victoria Sir Simon Milton Square (special mention: Casa do Frango for really decent Portuguese small plates) Wilton Street (special mentions: A. Wong for dim sum and Lorne for creative British) Tate Britain facade unadorned. Tate Britain f acade adorned with a neon light installation by artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman. The artwork, titled Remembering a Brave New World , was the museum's 2020 Winter Commission. National Gallery UK and Royal Academy UK? That's coming soon... (Updated December 2025)

The Fondation LV Retrospective (2025) The David Hockney 25 exhibition staged by Fondation Louis Vuitton (Fondation LV) ran f rom 09.04.2025 to 01.09.2025. It brought together more than 400 of his works created from 1955 to 2025. Visitors were greeted with a breathtaking retrospective in a variety of media including oil and acrylic painting, ink, pencil and charcoal drawing, digital art (works on iPhone, iPad, photographic drawings, etc) and immersive video installations.  30 Sunflowers, 1996 The Interview and Documentary by the BBC Watch his 26 minute interview by Katie Razzall. Bradford-born Hockney talks about why painting still makes him happy at ahead of his biggest show in Paris. For Hockney fans, the broadcasting station's documentary The Art of Seeing offers a wonderful insight on his exhibition A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy, made up of works depicting the landscape of his native Yorkshire. Hockney exhibition dates for 2026 The Hockney website is a good place to find all upcoming exhibitions. 16 Dec 2025 - 11 Jan 2026 , Aviva Studios, Manchester, UK: The vibrant and immersive exhibition Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away). (Ticketed). 12 March 2026 - 23 August 2026, Serpentine North, London, UK: The exhibition will showcase seminal works, shown in the UK for the first time. (Free). Selected artworks from the Fondation LV exhibition These are the artworks that left a mark on this art enthusiast... The titles alongside the text express my unique perspective on the world. The descriptions are provided by the amazing team from LV who organized this extraordinary exhibition. Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972. California Dreaming Compared to the cramped terraced houses of West Yorkshire and the rainy post-war dereliction of London, Los Angeles represented sunshine, freedom, and strong light. Inspired by old swimming pool cleaning manuals, palm trees, freeways and the space and scale of Southern California, the artist embarked on rendering the city and surrounding landscape in his own vision. Part observation, part fantasy in vivd acrylic. (Title reference: Song by the Mamas and the Papas. / Text by Fondation LV.) Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, 1990 Multiple Twin Peaks David Hockney first visited the United States in 1961, when he spent the Summer in New York. He first visited Los Angeles a few years later, and settled there from the mid 1960s. He taught at the Universities of Iowa and Colorado respectively in 1964 and 1965. (Title reference: inspiration from T win Peaks , an American surrealist mystery-horror drama television series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost . Text by Fondation LV). Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1968 Tête-à-tête This painting of the writer Christopher Isherwood and his companion, the painter Don Bachardy, is one of the most representative of David Hockney's double portraits. Depicted frontally, its quasi-stillness broken only by the movement of Isherwood's head, for the young Hockney they symbolize the freedom of Californian society, where a male couple of different ages could be seen in a relationship that today would be described as "open." (Title meaning: a private conversation between two people. / Text by Fondation LV.) Pearblossom Hwy., 11-18th April 1986 No. 2. A long way from Route 66 Driving north from Los Angeles, Hockney stopped along the Pearblossom Highway. There turning around on the spot, he aimed his camera at every detail, near and far, taking more than eight hundred photographs of the desert landscape surrounding him, encompassing the entire panorama, which he recomposed in the studio. According to the artist, this work was inspired by the way Cubist painters recomposed their subject from separate elements. The original collage of this print, created for this exhibition, is kept at the J. Paul Getty Museum. (Title reference: (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" is a popular rhythm and blues song, composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup. / Text by Fondation LV.) All about Chairs The Chair from 1985 powerfully fuses an eloquent tribute to past masters Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso with the striking subversion of traditional perspective that defines many of Hockney’s masterworks. (Text for Hockney's "The Chair" by Fondation LV.) Clockwise: 1. The Chair by David Hockney (1985). Private collection. 2. Van Gogh’s Chair by Vincent Van Gogh (1888). National Gallery Collection, London. 3. Gauguin’s chair by Vincent Van Gogh (1888). Van Gogh Museum Collection, Amsterdam. Me, Myself and David Left to right: Play Within a Play Within a Play and Me with a Cigarette, 2025 Self Portrait Standing with Red Braces, 2005 Self Portrait, 10th December 2021 (Title reference: inspiration from Me, Myself & Irene - a 2000 American slapstick black comedy film produced, co-written, and directed by the Farrelly brothers. Mirror, Mirror Self Portraits, 2012 Top to bottom and left to right No. 1200, 13th March 2012 Self Portrait IV, 25th March 2012 No. 1223, 21st March 2012 Self Portrait I, 13th March 2012 Self Portrait II, 16th March 2012 No. 1203, 14th March 2012 Self Portrait, 19th April 2012 Self Portrait I, 25th March 2012 No. 1216, 17th March 2012 No. 1194, 12th March 2012 Self Portrait II, 14th March 2012 Self Portrait, 10th March 2012 No. 1244, 6th April 2012 No. 1204, 15th March 2012 Self Portrait III, 20th March 2012 iPad drawings printed on paper, mounted on aluminium (Title reference for Star Trek fans: A famous 1967 episode where Captain Kirk and his crew are transported to an evil parallel universe.) Bigger Trees near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, 2007 Into the Woods The complex process leading to the creation of this work—Hockney's largest to date— included several stages, beginning with meticulous observation, followed by a plein air preparatory sketoh for defining the framing of each of the fifty canvases. Then a sketched grid of the entire composition was produced , to guide the process. The goal was not to enlarge a sketoh but to paint on the spot, spontaneously and immediately, as the painters of the Barbizon School and the Impressionists had done. Hockney worked on six panels at the same time, which were then photographed, scanned, and combined on a computer to give an overall view. There were many challenges: Hookney's studio was then in the attic of his mother's house in Bridlington, and its size was such that only six paintings could be viewed at one time. Given oil paint's lengthy drying time, the trunk of the car that was being used to transport the works had to be adapted to carry canvases that were still wet. Working with the constraint of spring's arrival, which would of course transform the trees, Hookney completed the painting in six weeks, showing it in the summer of 2007 at the Royal Academy in London, before donating it to the Tate. (Title reference: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s dazzling musical. / Text by Fondation LV.) Bigger Trees nearer Warter, Winter 2008 Perspectives This work, painted in March 2008, represents the same trees that can be seen above, while here they are seen in perspective in the grove's depths. (Text by Fondation LV.) Yorkshire Lad Top to bottom, left to right Rudston Trees II, 29 July 2005 Kilham to Langtoft, 2 August 2005 Langtoft to Kilham, 31 July 2005 Sledmere to Malton, 3 August 2005 Woldgate Vista, 27 July 2005 Kilham to Langtoft II, 27 July 2005 Kilham, 6 August 2005 Kilham to Langtoft, 25 July 2005 Rudston to S/edmere, August 2005 R Sledmere View, 7 & 10 August 2005 Untitled, 22 July 2005 Tree Tunnel, August 2005 Some Smaller Splashes, 2020 (acrylic on paper). The Arrival of Spring, Normandy , created on an iPad during the COVID-19 lockdown. Virtuosity Which one speaks to you more? ( Title reference: a 1995 American science fiction action film directed by Brett Leonard and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe .) The Exhibition book Author: Sir Norman Rosenthal The large scale landscape format book features a selection of archival photographs and eye-catching artworks allied to expertly written text by pre-eminent curatorial experts, art historians and critics. Compiled with the full involvement of David Hockney and his studio. Published in association with the Fondation Louis Vuitton . (Updated November 2025)

Brasserie LIPP The Random List: Au Petit Riche : Full of old world charm. A well appointed dining room with private lounges. Showing off original brass fittings (including hat racks and overhead light fixtures which were once gas lamps). A good Loire valley wine list to go with well executed traditional French food. 9th Arrondissement Metro : Opéra (Lines 3,7 and 8) Bonhomie : A contemporary Mediterranean restaurant and bar. Vibrant atmosphere and listed in the Michelin guide. 10th Arrondissement Metro : Bonne Nouvelle (Lines 8 and 9). Brasserie LIPP : An institution founded in 1880. Super traditional menu with service to match. It’s a “tick the box” choice. Frequented by writers and politicians alike, it quickly became a hub of gastronomy and intellectual life. 6th Arrondissement Metro : Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Line 4) La Coupole : Typical French brasserie in Montparnasse. Opened in 1927, it is a memorial to the French capital’s Art Deco legacy. The menu has a strong emphasis on seafood but there is one quirky dish worth trying: their famous Lamb curry. Great for groups and celebrations. 14th Arrondissement Metro: Montparnasse-Bienvenüe (Lines 4, 6, 12, and 13) Les Deux Colombes : A cosy neighbourhood gem offering authentic and delicious French cuisine. The perfect great value lunch spot near Saint Chapelle and Notre-Dame de Paris. 4th Arrondissement Metro : Cité (Line 4) Jaja : A lovely space that is a mix of historic architecture, atelier, and modernity. Great lunch spot in the Marais with an interesting wine menu near Musée National Picasso. 4th Arrondissement Metro: Saint-Paul (Line 1) and Hôtel de Ville (Lines 1 and 11) Le Perraudin : Located in the Latin Quarter. A charming, quaint, traditional French bistro. Unpretentious and good value. 5th Arrondissement RER : Luxembourg (Line B) Le Procope: Said to be the oldest Restaurant – Café – Glacier in Paris. Slightly touristy but dependable classic French menu. 6th Arrondisement Metro : Odéon (Lines 4 and 10) Roof : As it says on the tin…offering a bird’s eye view of Paris. Trendy cocktails, small eats and desserts in a lush rooftop garden setting. A great venue for a fun evening out with friends. Be prepared to queue if walking in. (Located in the Hôtel Madame Rêve). 1st Arrondissement Metro: Les Halles (Line 4) and Sentier (Line 3) Le Rosebud : Opened in 1962, and it's name? A tribute to the last word uttered by the dying protagonist in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941). A gem of bar with an authentic speakeasy vibe. Dim Lighting, low key and discreet . No web page. Found here: 11 bis rue Delambre. 14th Arrondisement Metro : Edgar Quinet (Line 6) Yakuza by Olivier : Japanese + Mediterranean. A winning combination from Olivier da Costa, one of Portugal's most prestigious chefpreneurs. Definitely one for special occasions. And for spotting the the latest fashions. Think Emily in Paris ... Temporarily closed for works at the time of writing (Nov. 2025). 9th Arrondissement Metro : Opéra (Lines 3, 7, and 8) and Chaussée d'Antin - La Fayette (Lines 7 and 9) Mediterranean sushi anyone? (updated November 2025)

Sharing insights for visits to these iconic destinations: Fondation Louis Vuitton Notre-Dame de Paris Louvre Panthéon Fondation Louis Vuitton Fondation Louis Vuitton: There and back again The iconic building was designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. It is located next to the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne, the famous park on the west side of Paris. Nearest Métro station: Les Sablons (M1). It involves a 15 minute walk initially through urban streets and then down a pleasant pathway through the Jardin d'Acclimatation. This route will pass by the restaurant within the park called La Terrasse du Jardin. As there are very few food outlets near the Fondation, this is a passable option. Nearest RER station: Avenue Foch (RER C). It involves an 18 minute walk through the trees within the Bois de Boulogne. The path could be deserted and lonely depending on the day of the week and the time of day. Opening times differ on weekdays. It opens at 10am on Saturday and Sunday but 11am on weekdays. The Fondation is closed on Tuesdays. doors do not open before the stated opening times. During popular exhibitions, there will be queues (due to security checks) even when holding a timed entry ticket. There is no shelter when queuing and limited seating. There is only 1 restaurant within the Fondation - Le Frank - and there is limited seating. Reservations (see website for details) are possible at certain times and certain days and making one is advisable. The Fondation building: 3,600 curved glass panels form the Fondation's twelve sails and 19,000 panels of Ductal (fibre-reinforced concrete). Notre-Dame de Paris: To Q or not to Q After the devastating fire in April 2019, the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris (popularly known as Notre Dame) took 5 years. It reopened in December 2024 and has become the “must-see” and the “must-revisit” destination in the French capital. For some, the queues can be challenging. Long queue lines can form, snaking along the gravel frontage. There is little shelter from the elements and few seating options. Moreover, there are no publicly accessible restrooms within the cathedral. The best solution: it is possible to reserve a free timed entry ticket via the Notre-Dame de Paris website . These slots are only available a few hours before the allotted visit time. If it indicates there are no available tickets. It is advisable to keep “refreshing” the website. Slots are released throughout the day. Bonne chance! The visit is worth the effort. Snapshots of selected nooks within the refurbished Cathedral Don’t miss visiting The Treasury within the Cathedral. Entry is ticketed. To buy a ticket, visit the desk at entrance to The Treasury which is located through the south ambulatory inside the cathedral. Virgin and Child The Virgin and Child is an exceptional work of art that is a testimony to the reconstitution of the Treasury after its destruction during the French Revolution. In 1814, King Louis XVII re-established the "Vow of Louis XI" procession (Louis XIII's consecration of France to the Virgin in 1638). In 1817, a statue of the Virgin made of silver was designed with financial support from the King. It was completed during the reign of Charles X who gifted it to the Cathedral in 1826, a jubilee year. Damaged during the sacking of the archbishopric in 1831, it was not until 1856 that the canons had it restored for the baptism of the Imperial Prince, son of Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie. Since 1929, the statue has worn a crown made by the metalsmith Boucheron (see below). This Virgin and Child is still carried in procession through the streets of Paris every year on Assumption Day, the annual renewal of the vow of Marian Consecration of which Notre-Dame is the eternal memorial. (Text by Notre-Dams de Paris) Crown for the Virgin and Child Statue. Gold, lapis lazulis, translucent enamels, pearl ends, diamonds. The Rose windows: One photo is taken in 2007 and the other in 2025. Are you able to tell which is which? To find out more about them, visit the Notre-Dame de Paris website on these stained glass wonders . Metro : Cité (Line 4.) RER . Saint-Michel Notre-Dame (B, C, D) Louvre: there is more to it than the Mona Lisa Most visitors are drawn to the Denon Wing. Leonardo da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are found in this wing. It is one of three in the Louvre and named after the Louvre's f irst director, Dominique Vivant Denon. Routes to and areas around these two artworks can be very busy. Oftentimes, it is almost impossible to pause awhile to appreciate the beauty of an artistic creation and allow the colours to speak directly to the soul. The Mona Lisa and everyone else! (some pixilation applied.) If time is not of the essence, then the rest of the Wing is worth exploring. Some of the galleries feature large-format works and are surprisingly uncrowded, providing ample space for quiet reflection. You will find 19th Century French paintings by by Jacques-Louis David and Eugène Delacroix. Besides da Vinci, you will also find masterpieces from Italian painters such as Raphael, and Caravaggio. There are magnificent Italian Renaissance sculptures including works by Michelangelo. Room for quiet reflection. Do not miss the Napoleon III Apartments in the Richelieu Wing. This Wing is named for French clergyman and statesman, Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu. He is better remembered as Cardinal Richelieu. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas features Cardinal Richelieu as the primary antagonist, a scheming and ruthless figure who is loyal to King Louis XIII but often clashes with the Musketeers. This is a purely fictitious depiction! Napoleon III Apartments: a glimpse of the splendour of the Second Empire Useful tip: the Louvre is well-visited, and refreshments within will require patient queuing. As for available seating at it's eateries, let’s just say it’s like trying to find a long lost da Vinci in a bric and brac shop! And the wait for the Ladies (aka les toilettes pour femmes ) can be a long, long one. So plan ahead for the first and don’t leave it too late for the second. Metro: Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre (Lines 1 and 7) Louvre–Rivoli (Line 1) The Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre station is closest to the main Pyramid entrance, and there is an underground entrance that leads to the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall and museum entrance.  The Panthéon & Anselm Kiefer The Panthéon The Panthéon, located in the Latin Quarter (5th arrondissement), was originally a church that now serves as a mausoleum for France’s most illustrious citizens, such as Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and Marie Curie. Battalion, by Anselm Keifer (2020) There is a permanent installation of works by German artist Anselm Keifer at the Panthéon in Paris. Commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, it is the first such commission for the Panthéon since 1924 and coincides with the 'Panthéonisation' of the French writer, poet, and WWI veteran Maurice Genevoix (1890-1980) on Armistice Day, 11 November 2020. Murals and mosaics throughout the building celebrate key moments and figures from French history. Fun fact: for scientific wizards, come and witness Foucault’s Pendulum experiment at the Panthéon. Who can resist an invitation to come and see the Earth turn? Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, fond of science and history, authorised the physicist Léon Foucault and the engineer Gustave Froment, to use the dome of the Panthéon to conduct the experiment in 1851. Fifty years later, Camille Flammarion, founder of the Astronomical Society of France, repeated the experiment at the Pantheon. The pendulum was permanently reinstalled in 1995. Metro : Cardinal Lemoine (Line 10) Place Monge (Line 7) Maubert Mutualité (Line 4) RER : Luxembourg station (Line B) (Updated November 2025)