Exploring the Medoc wine region, near Bordeaux, France. Staying at the excellent Chateau Ormes de Pez.

In Figueres to visit the Dali Museum – an amazing collection of Surrealist art by Salvador Dali, displayed in the museum he designed in the town of his birth.

Salvador Dali

Dali Museum, Figueres

Interior of the Dali Museum

Salvador Dali ‘‘Retrospective Bust of a Woman’ (1933)

In the summer of 1905 Henri Matisse and André Derain stayed and worked together in Collioure, in south-west France, near the Spanish border, developing what became known as the Fauvist style. They painted views of the town, the boats in the harbour, portraits of each other, and Matisse painted ‘The Open Window’.

Henri Matisse ‘View of Collioure’ (1905)

In the second decade of the twentieth century a community of artists settled and worked in Céret, many moving from Paris, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Juan Gris, Chaim Soutine, André Masson, Raoul Dufy and Jean Cocteau. Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Céret was created in 1950 with the personal support of Picasso and Matisse and now contains a fine collection of paintings by artists who worked in the town.

Chaim Soutine ‘Céret Landscape’ (c.1920)

Horace Silver, the great jazz pianist and composer, whose contribution to the Blue Note legacy is immeasurable, has died at the age of 85. Horace was a pioneer of hard bop and the original founder of The Jazz Messengers. He tempered bebop with elements of gospel, blues and R&B to help create what became known as the ‘Blue Note Sound’. He will be remembered for wonderful albums such as ‘Song for my Father’, The Tokyo Blues’, ‘Blowin’ the Blues Away’ and ‘Horace Silver and the Jazz Mesengers’.

Horace Silver

In Venice for the really wonderful exhibition ‘Léger 1910 – 1930’. The exhibition focuses on the ‘Vision of the Contemporary City’ pursued by Leger and other artists who had first-hand experience of the radical transformations that shaped everyday life throughout the world with the industrialization and urbanization of the years 1910 – 30.

Divided into five sections (The Metropolis Before the Great War, The Painter of the City, Advertising, Entertainment, Space), the works presented included more than 60 by Léger, including the extraordinary painting ‘La Ville’, as well as works by Delaunay, Mondrian, Gris, Duchamp and other avant-garde artists.

Fernand Léger ‘La Ville’ (1919)

Fernand Léger ‘Les Disques’ (1918)

Fernand Léger ‘Animated Landscape’ (1924)

Fernand Léger ‘La Roue’ film poster (1923)

Juan Gris ‘Still Life Before an Open Window’ (1915)

Marcel Duchamp ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ (1911)

The International Gallery of Modern Art, Ca’Pesaro, Venice

A visit to the Gallery of Modern Art at Ca’Pesaro, which contains an excellent collection of paintings and sculptures, including masterpieces by Rodin, Kandinsky, Klee, Chagall and Moore, amongst others.

Auguste Rodin ‘The Burghers of Calais’ (1889)

Emile Nolde ‘Flowering Plants’ (1909)

Wassily Kandinsky ‘White Zig Zags’ (1922)

Giorgio de Chirico ‘Mysterious Baths’ (1935)

A beautiful building full of spectacular palms and the restaurant inside provided an excellent lunch on a sunny spring day.

Easter in Vienna for the superb exhibition ‘Vienna – Berlin: Art of Two Cities’ at the Lower Belvedere. The Exhibition starts with the Secession movements of both cities and continues through World War I to the ‘New Objectivity’ of the 1920s, illustrating the connections and differences between the art of the two metropolises.

It was a wonderful opportunity to see art of the Viennese ‘Jugendstil’ alongside examples of German Expressionism from Kirchner, Beckmann, Dix, et al.

Egon Schiele ‘Portrait of the Publisher Eduard Kosmack’ (1910)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner ‘Women on the Street’ (1915)

George Grosz ‘Daum Marries her pedantic automaton George …’ (1920)

Hannah Hoch ‘The Journalists’ (1925)

Christian Schad ‘Lola’  (1927 – 28)

Jeanne Mammen ‘Music Hall Girls’ (1928 – 29)

‘Gustav Klimt’ at The Belvedere

Also a visit to the Upper Belvedere to look at the permanent collection, especially the wonderful works of Gustav Klimt.

Gustav Klimt ‘The Kiss’ (1907 – 08)

Gustav Klimt ‘Amalie Zuckerkandl’ (1917 – 18)

Gustav Klimt ‘The Bride’ (1917 – 18)

‘The Beethoven Frieze’

It was also a great opportunity to visit the Secession Building to view Klimt’s ‘Beethoven Frieze’, originally painted in 1902 as a decorative frieze for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition.

The Secession Building, Vienna

Gustav Klimt ‘Beethoven Frieze’ (1902)

Gustav Klimt ‘Beethoven Frieze’ (1902)

‘Monet to Picasso’ at The Albertina Museum

The Albertina Museum’s new permanent display under the title ‘Monet to Picasso’ contains an impressive collection of works primarily from the Batliner Collection. The paintings range from Impressionism and Fauvism to German Expressionism, the Bauhaus, and the Russian avant-garde, concluding with works by Picasso.

Amedeo Modigliani ‘Young Woman in a Shirt’ (1918)

Marc Chagall ‘The Kite’ (1926)

Joan Miro ‘Birds and Insects’ (1938)

Pablo Picasso ‘Sylvette’ (1954)

‘Vienna 1900’ at the Leopold Museum

The Leopold Museum’s collection of art, designs and furniture from Vienna in the early years of the twentieth century has been totally reconfigured under the title ‘Vienna 1900’.  It begins with Vienna’s Art Nouveau movement, the Jugendstil, represented by Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann. It then moves through Expressionism to the end of the First World War, with works by Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka  and many others. There are also fascinating examples of Wiener Werkstätte designs for furniture, glass and jewellery .

Art Nouveau furniture

Gustav Klimt ‘Death and Life’ (1910 – 15)

Egon Schiele ‘Reclining Boy – Erich Lederer’ (1913)

Oskar Kokoschka ‘The Croci – Dolomite Landscape’ (1913)

In Ferrara for the excellent exhibition ‘Matisse La Figura’ which follows the theme of the figure throughout his career. Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and his stylistic innovations altered the course of modern art. .

He was always experimenting, abandoning conventional perspective and form in favour of simplified areas of pure colour, flat shapes and decorative patterns. The figure was important throughout his career despite his stylistic changes. In 1942 Matisse affirmed “the model is the source of my energy”. This exhibition contains over 100 works including sculptures, portraits and other paintings containing figures.

Henri Matisse ‘Seated Nude, Back Turned’ (1917)

Henri Matisse ‘Odalisque with Grey Trousers’ (1926 – 27)

Henri Matisse ‘The Yellow Hat’ (1929)

Henri Matisse ‘Still Life with a Sleeping Woman’ (1940)

Henri Matisse ‘Blue Interior with Two Girls’ (1947)

In the beautiful Palladian city of Vicenza for the excellent exhibition ‘Verso Monet’, which showed landscape art from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. On display were paintings by Canaletto, Courbet, Cézanne, Manet, Renoir, van Gogh and Monet among others. The exhibition was held in the magnificent Basilica Palladiana.

Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza

Gustave Courbet ‘Waves’ (1869)

Paul Cézanne ‘Mont Sainte-Victoire’ (1885 – 87)

Claude Monet ”The Sheltered Path’ (1873)

Edouard Manet ‘Boats at Argenteuil’ (1874)

Vincent van Gogh ‘A Meadow in the Mountains’ (1889)