Sussex Art Events

This major exhibition of London Underground’s greatest poster designs celebrates the 150th Anniversary of London Underground.

On 9th January 1863 the world’s first underground train pulled out of Paddington station to make the first passenger journey – 3½ miles under the streets of London.

Since its first graphic poster commission in 1908, London Underground has developed a worldwide reputation for commissioning outstanding poster designs, becoming a pioneering patron of poster art.

'Poster Art 150' showcases 150 of the greatest Underground posters ever produced with designs from each decade over the last 100 years. The exhibition features posters by many famous artists including Edward McKnight Kauffer and Paul Nash and includes the surrealist photographer Man Ray’s ‘Keeps London Going’ pair. The posters were selected from the Museum’s archive of over 3,300 Underground posters by a panel of experts.

The last major London Underground poster retrospective was held in 1963 to celebrate its centenary.

Check out London Transport Museum's website here for further details.

A celebration of the work of R.B. Kitaj (1932–2007) one of the most significant painters of the post-war period, exhibited concurrently at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and the Jewish Museum. London.

Featuring a selection of around 100 works, the dual-venue exhibition will be the first major retrospective in the UK since his 1994-5 exhibition at the Tate Gallery.

'Analyst for Our Time' (23 Feb – 16 June 2013) – Pallant House Gallery, Chichester:
"casts Kitaj more as a painter of modern life. Its highlights include the porttrait of David Hockney "The Neo-Cubist"."

'The Art of Identity' (21 Feb – 16 June 2013) – Jewish Museum, London:
"explores Kitaj's desperate identification with Jewish themes and displays the outstsnding paintings "The Jewish Rider" and "Cecil Court, London WC2 (The Refigees")."

See Jackie Wullschager's review in FT Weekend here.

Man Ray Portraits at The National Portrait Gallery is the first major museum retrospective of this innovative and influential artist’s photographic portraits.

Focusing on his career in America and Paris between 1916 and 1968, the exhibition highlights Man Ray’s central position among the leading artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements and the significant range of contemporaries, celebrities, friends and lovers that he captured: from Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso to Kiki de Montparnasse, Lee Miller and Catherine Deneuve.

For the Evening Standard's review of this exhibition click on the link here.

This guy certainly had a way with beautiful women!

Click on 'Catherine Deneuve' below and the link will take to you a short video introduction to the exhibition given by Tony Penrose, illustrated by more of Man Ray's studies of his mother, Lee Miller, and explaining how he discovered his 'solarizing' technique.

Tate Modern presents a retrospective of one of the great American artists of the twentieth century.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective is the first full-scale retrospective of this important artist in over twenty years.

Co-organised by The Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern, the show brings together 125 of his most definitive paintings and sculptures and reassesses his enduring legacy.

Harry Mount in his article "Classical training that made Roy Lichtenstein a Pop genius"(Sunday Telegraph, 10th Feb) contrasts "a skilled artist such as Roy Lichtenstein" with an "untrained artist" with "limited gifts". Read what he says here.

'Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901' at The Courtauld Gallery reunites major paintings from his debut exhibition with the influential dealer Ambroise Vollard.

These works show the young painter taking on and transforming the styles and subjects of major modern artists of the age, such as Van Gogh, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec.

In the second half of 1901 Picasso radically changed the direction of his art heralding the beginning of his now famous Blue period.

"In our conceptual, democratising art age, homage to genius is unfashionable. Even the greatest artists tend to be shown in exhibitions straining for cultural and political context – Tate’s 'Picasso and Modern British Art' last year and 'Picasso: Peace and Freedom in 2010' are examples. The Courtauld Institute’s new, deeply erudite exhibition Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901 gloriously defies this trend."

See Jackie Wullschlager's review of this important exhibition in the FT here.