The Art Exhibitions to Know About in 2022 - Part 1

We're set to be in for a treat this year with the amount of brilliant exhibitions on offer. In fact, we found it too difficult to choose our highlights so part two to follow...

Aux sources des Nymphéas: le décor impressionniste 
Musée de l’Orangerie
Paris, March 02 – July 11

The historical Parisian gallery famed for Monet’s breath-taking cycle des Nymphéas, the two elliptical rooms specifically built to display a collection of the artist’s monumental murals on its curving white walls, will be inviting us to explore the origins of Impressionism by showcasing works by Cassatt, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro and Renoir. The exhibit will provides a journey through paintings, fans, ceramics and drawings, that shows how the Impressionists forged a new path. As Renoir once asserted, art is made above all to “brighten up the walls”.

Surrealism Beyond Borders
Tate Modern
London, February 24 – August 29

This exhibition is set to be an exhilarating ride as we’re given an in-depth look at Surrealism, spanning a great 80 years and 50 countries from Buenos Aires to Tokyo. The exhibit will show how artists across the world found inspiration in one another and united through challenging of authority and imagination of a new world. 

Donatello, The Renaissance
Palazzo Strozzi
Florence, March 24 – August 29

Palazzo Strozzi is staging a mighty display of the works of Donatello. This will be the first major Donatello exhibition in nearly 40 years. There will be a huge, 130 works on display including bas reliefs made for the Baptistery in Siena, as well as smaller devotional statuettes, painted wooden crucifixes and reliquaries. Loans will come from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris among many others. The works will also include paintings, which Arturo Galansino, Director of Palazzo Strozzi “will show how Donatello influenced his contemporaries—Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini—but also how his artistic vision reigned supreme until the arrival of Caravaggio” But if getting to Italy isn’t an option, perhaps you can catch the exhibit when it travels to Berlin and London in 2023.

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast 
Royal Academy of Arts
London, January 29 – April 17

This powerful exhibition will be the first to follow Bacon's lifelong fascination with animals and chart just how this impacted his approach to his ultimate subject: the human figure where at times, his figures are barely recognisable as either human or beast. And Bacon’s final painting he ever made in 1991 will be on display for the first time in the UK.

Cézanne, Lumière de Provence
Atelier des Lumières
Paris, February 18 – January 1, 2021

This immersive exhibit will transport you from Paris to the birthplace and favourite muse of Paul Cézanne, Provence. Sounds of Cicadas chirping and lavender scents surround you as you are taken on a journey of the artist's life through his work. Seeing everything from the inner turmoil in his self portraits to his love of nature and light depicted in his landscape works. You'll leave the exhibit with a deeper understanding of the iconic painter.

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
California, March 20 - July 17, 2022

This exhibit will include Kruger's immersive installations, animations, works on vinyl and her widely circulated pictures. And with Kruger being such a prominent critical observer of culture, this exhibition will have us thinking about the media's influence and reconsider how we relate to one another.