Masters of the German Renaissance - National Gallery

Swabian,  Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family, c 1470

Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance is at The National Gallery until 11 May 2014.
What fabulous paintings these are and what an amazing collection the National Gallery has. It does, however seem a little cheeky that the National Gallery is charging £7.00 for visitors to see a show which includes so many masterpieces which it normally shows for free!
Still, you can't have too much Holbein, Cranach and Dürer!
Read a review by Alastair Sooke.

Hans Holbein the Younger, Erasmus, 1523

Hans Holbein the Younger, A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?), c 1526-8

Hans Holbein the Younger, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors'), 1533

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cupid complaining to Venus, c 1525

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of a Woman, c 1525

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Saints Christina and Ottilia, 1506

Jan Gossaert, A Man holding a Glove, c 1530-2

Richard Deacon - Tate Britain (and The Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum!)

Richard Deacon, After, 1988

Richard Deacon is at Tate Britain until 27 April 2014; Deacon's 1989 sculpture Kiss and Tell (see below) is currently on display in The Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum.

Richard Deacon came to public attention in 1981 in an exhibition called 'Objects and Sculptures' shown at the ICA and the Arnolfini. Alongside Bill Woodrow, Tony Cragg, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and others he was one of a loose group tagged 'New British Sculpture'. 
Whereas most of his peers forged a sculptural language that eschewed Minimalism's pure materialism in favour of figurative references and a narrative content responding to the contemporary urban and industrial social landscape, Deacon made, and continues to make, resolutely abstract work. His fantastically shaped forms betray a preoccupation with  the nature and possibilities of a wide range of material formed into hugely satisfying, beautiful and often suggestively organic shapes.
Read reviews by Rachel Cooke, Waldemar Januszczak and Alastair Sooke and a series of interviews with the artist on the Tate website.

Richard Deacon, It's Orpheus When There's Singing #7, 1978-9

Richard Deacon, Art for Other People #6, 1983

Richard Deacon, Art for Other People #12, 1984

Richard Deacon, Struck Dumb, 1988

Richard Deacon, Fold, 2012

Richard Deacon, Kiss and Tell, 1989 (On display in the Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum)

Richard Hamilton - Tate Modern and ICA

Richard Hamilton, Swingeing London, 1967

Richard Hamilton is at Tate Modern until 26 May 2014 and at the ICA until 6 April 2014.

Richard Hamilton is routinely labelled as the 'Father of British Pop Art', principally because of his wonderful, prescient 1956 collage Just what is it about today's homes that makes them so different, so appealing? (see below) and his early (1957) definition of Pop: Pop Art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience),Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business. However, despite this, and a handful of other seminal works classified as 'British Pop', his wide ranging interests and restless experimentation meant that his work largely escapes such a narrow classification.

The exhibition at Tate Modern presents a huge range of his work from student etchings made in 1949 through to the work he was making at the time of his death in 2011, and includes a reconstruction of his 1956 installation Fun House and his replica of Marcel Duchamp's 'Large Glass'.

Complementing the Tate’s show the ICA is also showing reconstructions of two installations, Man, Machine and Motion (1955) and An Exhibit (1957).

Read reviews by Adrian Searle, Richard Cork, Laura Cumming, Jackie Wullschlager, Brian Sewell and Mark Hudson and an article by Fiona MacCarthy.

Richard Hamilton, Man, Machine and Motion, 1955 (reconstructed for ICA 2014)

Richard Hamilton, Just what is it about today's homes that makes them so different, so appealing?, 1956

Richard Hamilton, Interior II, 1964

Richard Hamilton, Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland, 1964

Marcel Duchamp / Richard Hamilton, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23; replica 1965-6

Richard Hamilton, The Citizen, 1981-3

Richard Hamilton, Self-Portrait 05.3.81, 1990

Stuart Hall, 1932 - 2014

Dawoud Bey, Stuart Hall, 1998

Stuart Hall died on 10 February 2014.
The passing of Stuart Hall is a big loss. While his scholarship and contributions to the fields of sociology and cultural studies were profound (his ideas have affected me deeply and have informed my own teaching) I think most of all he will be missed for his intelligent analysis of politics and culture and for simply being an extraordinarily decent and charming person.
Read an obituary in The Guardian and by Roger Bromley; read an article by Stuart Jeffries, and an interview with Zoe Williams; listen to an interview with Laurie Taylor recorded in 2011 and Laurie Taylor's 'Thinking Allowed' tribute; watch him talking about Represention and the Media.

Stuart Hall (far right) with associates of The New Left Review, 1960s