The Fitzwilliam Museum starts Friday night exhibition openings

The Fitzwilliam Museum has started offering monthly Friday night late openings for its major spring exhibition A world of private mystery: John Craxton, RA (1922-2009). The exhibition will be open for free visits in the evening to 8pm on Fridays 10 January, 14 February, 14 March and 11 April.

Assistant Director of the Fitzwilliam, Kate Carreno commented: "We have had feedback from members of the public that they would like more evening and weekend events. Opening our major exhibition for a monthly Friday night viewing is a good trial event as national museums Friday night late openings have been popular and well established for years. If these events prove popular we hope to do more for future exhibitions."

John Craxton spent the majority of his life in Crete proclaiming 'life is more important than art'. His artwork celebrated the colour and warmth of the Mediterranean, ranging from luminous landscapes to portraits illustrating the Greek lifestyle, often including food, goats and cats. Two of the late night openings will have free special events exploring the themes of celebrating life in Greece. On 14 February there will be a 6pm screening of the film Dhiava: The Autumn Journey, introduced by the film’s narrator, Tim Salmon. On 11 April the Museum will also be holding a Greek food event, celebrating the Greek love of food from the ancient past to present day, with special talks and activities and music in its own Greek courtyard.

A World of Private Mystery explores the work of John Craxton - from his beginnings as a young hope British art, creating dark, meditative images of the natural world in the gloom of post-war Britain, to works of incredible vibrancy, colour and joy from his later life when he had settled in Crete.

John Craxton is appreciated by connoisseurs as one of the great British artists of the 20th century; however, his work is not widely known to the public. This is the first exhibition to explore his whole life featuring a carefully chosen selection of over sixty of Craxton's finest pictures.

The exhibition also includes a film by David Attenborough exploring Craxton’s life and work.

A world of private mystery: John Craxton, RA (1922-2009) is open to Monday 21 April at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Admission is free.

**** "This small show does full justice to the inimitable work of John Craxton" - The Telegraph

John Craxton, Red and Yellow Landscape, 1945 © estate of John Craxton

8 January 2014