Courtauld Institute

When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, its members included two women, yet there would not be another female academician until Dame Laura Knight was elected in 1936. Despite this institutional exclusion, women artists in Britain continued to train, practice and exhibit during this period, particularly in the field of landscape watercolours. The Courtauld Gallery’s upcoming exhibition seeks to bring to light some of these women artists. Focussing on 1760-1860, the showcase will take you through the work of 10 artists over 100 years of landscape drawings and watercolours including some of the first ever depictions of the ethereal Lake District. 

There’s an undeniable bliss that comes from being next to a large body of water, and this cold London winter has left me craving a day trip to the seaside. However, my desire for escape was sated by visiting Seurat and the Sea at the Courtauld Gallery, where I wandered through quiet coastal towns and had the shore all to myself.  French painter Georges Seurat was dead by 31, but in fewer than 50 canvases he left an indelible mark on art history. By applying thousands of dots and dashes of pure colour right next to each other, he pioneered the technique of Pointillism, which in turn birthed Neo-Impressionism. The aim of this psychedelic morse-code was that the eye, rather than the brush, would blend colours together to create the image.  Though renowned for his scenes of leisuring Parisians such as Bathers at Asnières and A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, more than half of Seurat’s output (and the subject of this show) is stoic visions of the sea from towns along the northern French coast. Seeing as I’ve always found Seurat’s rendering of people somewhat flat and uninspiring, thankfully, these paintings are devoid of people – the only human presence being the boats punctuating the horizon. This heightens the sense of serenity as you trace the geometric silhouettes of ports and harbours mingling with the carefree contours of the surrounding coast. Pointillism really lends itself to seascapes, the unblended paint shimmering under the gallery spotlights like sunlight over the...

Have you ever wanted to see how a legendary gallery like the Courtauld conserves centuries-old artefacts? Now, you can. Longthorpe Tower’s fourteenth-century medieval wall paintings were once described by English archaeologist E Clive Rouse as the ‘most important domestic mural paintings of the medieval period in England’ due to their rare mixture of secular and religious themes. Now there’s a chance to see the conservation of ye olde masterpiece in action at the Courtauld's upcoming display, which will provide invaluable insight into the role of the Courtauld's Conservation Department in safeguarding one of the UK’s most remarkable medieval wall paintings.