The National Gallery is limiting itself to two major shows a year in the Sainsbury Wing. The spring exhibition is Barocci: Brilliance and Grace (27 February to 19 May), the first major showing of Federico Barocci (1535–1612), who managed to fuse Venetian colour with the sense of drawing and pictorial design favoured in Central Italy. The autumn show is The Portrait in Vienna 1867–1918 (9 October 2013 to 12 January 2014), an examination of the punchy Viennese avant-garde of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka. Both sound very promising, and for lighter entertainment, there are smaller shows of Frederic Church’s oil sketches (6 February to 28 April) and Michael Landy’s kinetic sculptures (23 May to 24 November) in the main building.
Titles of exhibitions at the British Museum are refreshingly self-explanatory. Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind (7 February to 26 May) examines the beginnings of European figurative art in sculpture, ceramics, drawing and ornament.
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