The American
Claude Monet, The Cliffs at Étretat, 1885 Oil on canvas, 65.1 x 81.3 cm © STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE, WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
left), Pissarro, Sisley and Morisot, and over twenty paintings by Renoir including At the Concert, 1880. The paintings include landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes, nudes and portraits, plus self portraits by Renoir and Degas. – RG
Han Elsinore, Denmark Before you even enter the RA, enjoy art in its courtyard. Chris Wilkinson RA has designed Landscape to Portrait, a series of eleven frames which flip through ninety degrees and incorporate innovative seating for visitors. So it’s BIG! Once inside there are the usual RAs from Ken Howard to Tracey Emin. The Summer Exhibiton is the big go-toand-be-seen-at art event of the year. Don’t miss the small paintings gallery. with more than 200 little gems, the place to buy reasonably priced contemporary art to invest in, if you pick wisely. – EL
From Paris: A Taste For Impressionism The Royal Academy of Arts, London W1J 0BD July 7 to September 23 Also at the RA this month is this noteworthy touring exhibition of Impressionist paintings from the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, on something of a world tour and this side of the pond between stops in Texas and Montreal. 70 works, many not displayed in the UK before, with works from Manet, Monet (pictured
Finally, if your European hols are taking you to Denmark, you will discover that the famous statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen now has a similarly-sized male counterpart in Elsinore. Named Han (Danish for ‘Him’), the polished stainless steel sculpture of a boy sitting upon a stone has the liquid appearance of a CGI effect (James Cameron’s The Abyss and Marvel’s Silver Surfer spring to mind), its shifting reflections all the more striking located in the real world setting of a Danish harbor, seemingly an entity of liquid seated upon the land. Cleverly, the sculpture also blinks momentarily once every hour. – RG PHOTO: ANDERS SUNE BERG
British Summer Season from social occasions to box-office appeal. The Chelsea Flower Show; opera at Glyndebourne; cricket at Lord’s; Horseracing at Royal Ascot; tennis at Wimbledon; polo at Windsor; yachting at Cowes... I like the diary of tradition. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded by King George III (the mad King who lost the Brits America) in 1768. The first Summer Exhibition was held in a warehouse on Pall Mall, in 1769, with only 136 paintings on show. It moved to the present Royal Academy site in 1869 and ever since, the Summer Exhibition has attracted attention. For example, when fig leaves were stuck onto classical male statues to cover protruding private parts which could have embarrassed Queen Victoria; Gainsborough removed his canvases displeased with how they were hung; Turner finished Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, on Varnishing Day – used for varnishing the paintings whilst hanging in the gallery just before the exhibition opened to the public; and a suffragette damaged American artist Sargent’s portrait of Henry James.
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