A fascinating exhibition which shows the influence of non-western arts on Picasso’s career. On display are items from Picasso’s own collection of African and Oceanic art as well as works by him that they influenced.

Female Body Mask [Nevimbumbao], Vanuatu

Grebo Mask, Ivory Coast

Pablo Picasso ‘Three Figures under a Tree’ (1907)

Pablo Picasso ‘Standing Nude Profile’ (1920)

21 Rue La Boétie was the address of the Paris gallery of Paul Rosenberg. who. between the two world wars, represented artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Leger. The exhibition brings together works that passed through his hands during that period.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec ‘Seated Woman in the Garden’ (1891)

Fernand Leger ‘Le Grand Déjeuner’ (1921)

Pablo Picasso ‘Bathers’ (1921)

Henri Matisse ‘The Piano Lesson’ (1923)

Henri Matisse ‘Blue Dress in Ochre Armchair’ (1937)

A wonderful exhibition of paintings of genre scenes of the daily lives of the Dutch urban elite in the 1650s and 60s. The exhibition shows that far from being a lone figure, Vermeer was part of a network of painters, including Gerard Ter Borch, Pieter de Hooch and Gabriel Metsu, all painting similar subjects.

Johannes Vermeer ‘The Milkmaid’ (c.1657 – 58)

Johannes Vermeer ‘The Astronomer’ (c.1668)

Johannes Vermeer ‘The Geographer’ (c.1668 – 69)

Johannes Vermeer ‘The Lacemaker’ (c.1669 – 70)

Gerard Ter Booch ‘Woman at a Mirror’ (1651 – 52)

Pieter de Hooch ‘Woman Nursing an Infant, with a Child and a Dog’ (c.1658 – 60)

Gabriel Metsu ‘Woman Reading a Letter’ (1664 – 66)

An excellent concert by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Mikko Franck. The programme began with Gershwin’s ‘Concerto for Piano’ with soloist Yeol Eum Son and continued in the second half with Debussy’s ‘Prélude à l’aprés-midi d’un faune’ and ‘La Mer’.

At the fascinating Abstract Expressionism exhibition at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Over 130 paintings, sculptures and photographs from collections around the world displaying the art of Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and others.

The exhibition shows the diversity of the phenomenon of Abstract Expressionism which, although it had its roots in Europe, was developed by a new wave of both immigrant and American artists in the USA from the mid-1940s.

Jackson Pollock ‘Mural’ (1943)

Arshile Gorky ‘Water of the Flowery Mill’ (1944)

Mark Rothko ‘Yellow Band’ (1956)

Willem de Kooning ‘Woman in Forest’ (c.1963 – 64)

Robert Motherwell ‘Elegy to the Spanish Republic, no. 126’ (1972 – 75)

‘The Rupf Collection’ at the Guggenheim

Also an opportunity to see an excellent exhibition featuring seventy works from the Rupf Collection including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and others.

Andre Derain ‘Landscape near Cassis’ (1907)

Georges Braque ‘Houses in L’Estaque’ (1908)

Georges Braque ‘Violin and Bow’ (1911)

Pablo Picasso ‘Violin Hanging on the Wall’ (1913)

Fernand Leger ‘Still Life’ (1922)

Juan Gris ‘Book and Pipe’ (1925)

An extremely entertaining production of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ at the National Theatre, with the excellent Tamsin Greig as the cross-gendered Malvolia.

At the Royal Academy, London for this excellent exhibition of Russian art marking the one-hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

The exhibition surveys the entire artistic landscape of post-Revolutionary Russia, mixing the Socialist Realism of Isaak Brodsky with the avant-garde art of Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky and the films of Sergei Eisenstein.

Isaak Brodsky ‘V.I.Lenin and Manifestation’ (1919)

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev ‘Bolshevik’ (1920)

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin ‘Fantasy’ (1925)

Kazimir Malevich ‘Peasants’ (c.1930)

Wassily Kandinsky ‘Blue Crest’ (detail, 1917)

At the Courtauld Gallery in London to see its excellent permanent collection, featuring art from the Renaissance up to the twentieth century.

Robert Campin ‘The Entombment’ (c.1425)

Botticelli ‘Trinity with Saints’ (1491 – 93)

Edouard Manet ‘Bar at the Folies Bergère’ (1882)

Vincent van Gogh ‘Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear’ (1889)

Paul Cezanne ‘The Card Players’ (1892 – 95)

At the National Gallery, London to see highlights of the Renaissance collection.

Jan van Eyck ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ (1434)

Botticelli ‘Venus and Mars’ (c.1485)

Giovanni Bellini ‘Doge Leonardo Loredan’ (1501 – 02)

Leonardo da Vinci ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ (1491 – 1508)

Raphael ‘Madonna of the Pinks’ (1506 – 07)

In Toulouse to see the impressive Fondation Bemberg exhibition, the personal collection of the wealthy Argentine Georges Bemberg (1915–2011). It is an extremely eclectic collection of paintings from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

Lucas Cranach ‘Venus and Cupid’ (c. 1530)

Paul Gauguin ‘Head of a Young Boy’ (1888)

Henry-Edmund Cross ‘La Chaine des Maures’ (1906 – 07)

Maurice de Vlaminck ‘Still Life with Fish’ (1907)

Paul Serusier ‘Fern Harvesters in the Bois d’Armour’ (c.1910)