Monochrome: Painting in Black and White - National Gallery

Hendrik Goltzius, The Great Hercules,1599

Monochrome: Painting in Black and White is at the  National Gallery until 18 February 2018.
This is a wonderful exhibition. The idea of a survey of black and white painting may not seem immediately enticing, but this is a spectacular show. With works spanning from the Middle Ages to the 21st century the variety is remarkable and includes work of jaw-dropping beauty and skill - for example Jan Van Eyck's Annunciation (1430s) in which the painted forms convincingly simulate three-dimensional stone figures; Louis-Léopold Boilly's A Girl at the Window (after 1799) which although a slightly kitsch, sentimetal picture, contains a shiny telescope that you would swear was made of metal and protuding from the picture plane. At the other extreme there is Frank Stella's spare, rigorous and beautiful, Minimalist painting, Tomlinson Court Park I (1959). Altogether there is simply so much visual pleasure to be found here.
Read reviews by Adrian Searle, Laura Cumming,  Alastair Sooke.

Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation Diptych, c1433-5

Albrecht Dürer, Head of a Woman, 1520

Etienne Moulinneuf, (after Jean-Simeon Chardin) Back from the Market (La Pourvoyeuse), c1770

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Odalisque in Grisaille, c1824-34

Peder Balke, The Tempest, c1862

Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square, 1965

Frank Stella, Tomlisn Court Park I, 1959

Gerhard Richter,  Helga Matura with her Fiancé, 1966

Chuck Close, Joel, 1993

Painters' Paintings - National Gallery

Edgar Degas, Combing the Hair (La Coiffure), c1896 - owned by Henri Matisse

Painters’ Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck is at the National Gallery until 4 September 2016.

What a pleasure this exhibition is. Inspired by Lucian Freud’s bequest to the National Gallery of a fabulous painting by Corot – he left it to the nation in gratitude for Britain giving refuge to his family from the Nazis in 1933 (see below) – this exhibition brings together a selection of great works collected by great artists, notably Lucian Freud, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas and Sir Anthony Van Dyck; the exhibition also includes the not quite so great painters Lord Leighton, Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Examples of each artist-collector’s work is exhibited alongside works they had owned.

The premise of the exhibition does make for a fascinating set of stories and insight into the ’conversations’ artists have with the works both of their contemporaries and across time with their forebears. But more than that it simply brings together a concentrated selection of terrific paintings.
The highlights of the exhibition are the rooms devoted to Matisse and Degas and their respective collections. Matisse’s Degas (Combing the Hair, above) is, I think, a sensational painting; Degas himself was, evidently, an obsessive collector, acquiring more than 1,000 works in his lifetime.

The show, dips a little with the rooms devoted to Leighton, Lawrence and Reynolds but concludes on a high note with Van Dyck’s own great work alongside a couple of Titians.

Below is my selection of favourites from the exhibition. Click on images to enlarge.

Read reviews by Laura Cumming, Mark Hudson, Ben Luke and Jonathan Jones,

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Italian Woman, c1870 - owned by Lucian Freud

Henri Matissse,  The Inattentive Reader (La liseuse distraite), 1919

Paul Cezanne, Three Bathers, 1879-82 - owned by Henri Matisse

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1942 - owned by Henri Matisse

Jacques-Emile Blanche, Francis Poictevin, 1887 - owned by Egar Degas

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Angelica saved by Ruggiero, 1818-39 - owned by Edgar Degas

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx, c1826 0 owned by Edgar Degas

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Monsieur de Norvins, 1811-12 - owned by Edgar Degas

Raphael, An Allegory ('Vision of a Knight'), c1504 - owned by Sir Thomas Lawrence

Sir Anthony van Dyck, Thomas Killigrew and William, Lord Crofts (?), 1638

Titian,  Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo, c1510 - owned by Sir Anthony van Dyck

George Shaw - The National Gallery

George Shaw, Study for Hanging Around (Landscape without Figures), 2014

George Shaw: My Back to Nature is at the National Gallery until 30 October 2016.

I have long been a fan of George Shaw’s Humbrol Enamel paintings of the decayed, depressed post-war housing estate of Coventry, where he grew up – Adrian Searle nicely described his work as a miserabilist suburban sort of metaphysical painting. Shaw was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2011 (see below); now, since 2014, he has been the latest Associate Artist in the National Gallery; The appointment is by invitation and is for a period of two years. The artist is given a studio in which to make new work that in some way connects to the National Gallery Collection. It is designed to demonstrate the continuing inspiration of the Old Master tradition on today's artists.

Shaw’s work includes 14 drawings of himself, naked, in poses that are studies of masterpieces in the National Gallery. But the main event is a series of paintings which take their cues from Titian, Breughel and Poussin and which have shifted the artist’s focus away from Tile Hill (the Coventry housing estate which has been his obsessive subject) to nature; or, at least, to the wooded areas on the outskirts of that estate where discarded mattresses and magazines become a feature of the landscape.

Read reviews by Laura Cumming (she describes the show as ‘riveting’), Waldemar Januszczak,  Alastair Smart and Jonathan Jones. Watch a short video: George Shaw: In the Woods, in which the artist talks about the subject material for his new paintings – the ‘suburban nature’, the ‘other world’ of the wooded land a few hundred yards away from the housing estates where, take away containers, soft-drink cans, beer cans, crisp packets, condoms… mark its character and use. 
Read A Q&A with George Shaw... painter. Read an interview from 2011 with Sean O'Hagan.

George Shaw, The Sadness of the Middle-Aged Life Model, 2015

George Shaw, The School of Love

George Shaw, the Foot of a Tree, 2015-16

George Shaw, Every Brushstroke is Torn out of my Body

George Shaw, Natural Selection, 2015-16

George Shaw, Natural Selection, 2015-16 (detail)

George Shaw, the Call of Nature

George Shaw, The Rude Screen

George Shaw,  My Back to Nature - installation view, National Gallery

Veronese - National Gallery

Paolo Veronese, Perseus and Andromeda, 1575-80

Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice is at the National Gallery until 15 June.
Veronese was "one of the greatest painters who have ever lived", is the bold claim of Xavier Salomon, curator of this exhibition; Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery is reported to agree with Salomon that The Martyrdom of St George (c.1565, see below) is 'arguably the world's greatest painting'.
I simply haven't seen enough Veronese (yet) to know if this is overwrought hyperbole or sound judgement. But just on the basis of reproductions of paintings such as Perseus and Adndromeda (above) I am ready to be seduced. Reviews, too, have been pretty positive:
"The show of a lifetime. This is the first – and quite likely the last – chance we will have to see his soaringly beautiful art at full stretch in this country." (Laura Cumming)
Veronese (1528-88), born Paolo Caliari in Verona (hence 'Veronese') became one of the leading artists of Venice alongside Titian (c.1490-1576), the sculptor Sansovino (1486-1570) and architect Andrea Palladio (1508-80). He was notable for large scale paintings of mythological and biblical subjects. 
In 1573 Veronese was summoned before the Inquisition to explain the inclusion of inappropriate figures in his painting of the Last Supper: "Did some person order you to paint Germans, buffoons, and other similar figures in this picture?", Veronese responded:  "When I have some space left over in a picture, I adorn it with figures of my own invention… ". Ordered to remove the offending figures 'at his own expense', Veronese simply retitled the painting Feast at the House of Levi (see below - NB not included in exhibition).
Read reviews by Laura Cumming, Waldemar Januszczak,  Richard Dorment; watch a short video of Nicholas Penny talking about the Adoration of the Kings. Click on images to enarge.

Paolo Veronese,The Martyrdom of St George, c.1565

Paolo Veronese, Lucretia, 1580s

Paolo Veronese, Portrait of a Lady, known as the "Bella Nani", c.1560-5

Paolo Veronese, The Adoration of the Kings, 1573

Paolo Veronese, The Conversion of Mary Magdalene, c1548

Paolo Veronese, Mars and Venus United by Love, 1570s

Paolo Veronese, The Feast at the House of Levi, 1573