Fisun Güner

Fleshing out the man through his art, this is a surprisingly moving survey of Gainsborough’s portraits depicting those in his intimate circle. The mastery in those feathery brushstrokes, the exquisitely painted layers of diaphanous fabric, the arresting tenderness of his portraits of his daughters, show that Gainsborough really is one of the greats of European painting (not just British) and of the Rococo.

Klimt, the older artist in this Viennese partnership, was a mentor for Schiele. But in this exhibition of drawings by the two artists, loaned from the Albertina Museum in Vienna, there’s an unforgettable visceral energy and excitement conveyed through Schiele’s exquisite line that surpasses even the most masterly of Klimt’s drawings and studies. Read my review of the exhibition here.

There are few artist who could paint flesh, particularly ageing flesh, like Ribera. Suffering too. The Spanish Baroque artist, who spent most of his life working in Naples, painted saints and sinners in extremis, and this wonderful and intelligent exhibition questions the long-held assumption that Ribera’s fondness for depicting cruelty bordered on sadism. On the contrary, say the curators, his depictions of physical suffering are the result of an acute religious and social engagement with his times.

The Venetian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto is comparatively little known among the Italian Renaissance greats, so it’ll come as no surprise that the National Gallery’s small but almost perfectly formed survey of his portrait paintings is the first such survey of the artist in the UK. And what a treat and revelation it is. The emotional depth and psychological acuity he brings to his portraits is, though not quite unsurpassed, definitely striking and unusual.

I promise you’ll be utterly absorbed by this thrilling survey of German artists painting during the dark and politically tumultuous decade of the Weimar Republic. It’s full of agony and rapture that speaks of the hungry decade where the traumas of the First World War were still being suffered. Yet for society’s rebels and bohemians this was also a time of sexual liberty. Free entry.

Admittedly, you’ll need to be quite committed to sit through all the films from this year’s shortlist from start to finish, but I wouldn’t call it a slog. There’s a strong global political slant to this year’s line-up, which is good, but it’s a shame neither Forensic Architecture nor Naeem Mohaiemen won (it was Charlotte Prodger). It’s also a shame that you can’t get two visits per ticket. A solid shortlist though. Read my review of the Turner Prize 2018 exhibition here.

A small but timely exhibition of 12 artists illustrating refugee stories, both observed and experienced first hand. Includes the work of Iranian cartoonist Majid Adin, who recently won the animation competition to make a new video of Elton John’s Rocket Man, interpreting the song through the lens of a refugee estranged from his family. Watch the video here