Art

Emma Crichton-Miller

Picasso 1932—Love, Fame, Tragedy

Tate Modern, 8th March to 9th September

In January 1932, Pablo Picasso, then 50, painted The Dream, a voluptuous portrait of his young lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter. This magnificent, radical painting, never before exhibited in the UK, launched a year of spectacular productivity, as Picasso juggled caring for his wife and son with his passionate affair. This is Tate Modern’s first ever solo Picasso show—a month-bymonth journey through this pivotal year.

Tacita Dean

Portrait: National Portrait Gallery, 15th March to 28th May; Still Life: National Gallery, 15th March to 28th May; Landscape: Royal Academy, 19th May to 12th August

In an unusual display of collegiality, three major London arts institutions are honouring Tacita Dean. A Turner Prize nominee in 1998, Dean transfixed visitors to Tate Modern in 2011 with her Turbine Hall installation, Film. The NPG will show some of Dean’s experimental filmed portraits of artists; at the National Gallery she will curate the exhibition, Still Life, including new work of her own, and the Royal Academy will focus on her fascination with landscape.

America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper

Ashmolean, Oxford, 23rd March to 22nd July

The Ashmolean introduces major American artworks never before seen in the UK. American Cool was born in the roaring 1920s and grew up in the depression-era 1930s—evolving a distinctly American modernism. Artists such as Charles Demuth—famous for his bold homage to William Carlos Williams, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (detail below)— embraced glittering modernity with its advertising billboards and colourful graphic design. Others, such as Edward Hopper, cast a less optimistic eye on the urban landscape. Unmissable.