Art Review: Dulwich Picture Gallery a London Jewel

The Dulwich Picture Gallery is well known to connoisseurs, collectors, and serious art tourists. Located in a leafy London suburb, though, it’s visited mostly by locals and the discerning few. It’s lovely to have three Rembrandts and Poussins, Murillos, and Gainsboroughs in the hood. The building is a precious, small jewel designed by John Soane.

Opening in 1817, it’s the oldest public art museum in Britain and, I suppose, the oldest in the English-speaking world. Though I’ve done three exhibitions with Dulwich in my career, I hadn’t been for a while. A visit was long past due since the place has a new director as well as a Helen Frankenthaler woodcut exhibition called “Radical Beauty.” Frankenthaler is a superb artist renowned for her drip paintings absorbed by the canvas, her soak-and-stain method, but as a printmaker, she’s second to none among the Abstract Expressionists. I wouldn’t even call her an Abstract Expressionist since she died in 2011 and made her exquisite woodcuts starting in the 1970s. She’s her own thing.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery is well known to connoisseurs, collectors, and serious art tourists. Located in a leafy London suburb, though, it’s visited mostly by locals and the discerning few. It’s lovely to have three Rembrandts and Poussins, Murillos, and Gainsboroughs in the hood. The building is a precious, small jewel designed by John Soane.

Opening in 1817, it’s the oldest public art museum in Britain and, I suppose, the oldest in the English-speaking world. Though I’ve done three exhibitions with Dulwich in my career, I hadn’t been for a while. A visit was long past due since the place has a new director as well as a Helen Frankenthaler woodcut exhibition called “Radical Beauty.” Frankenthaler is a superb artist renowned for her drip paintings absorbed by the canvas, her soak-and-stain method, but as a printmaker, she’s second to none among the Abstract Expressionists. I wouldn’t even call her an Abstract Expressionist since she died in 2011 and made her exquisite woodcuts starting in the 1970s. She’s her own thing.