By April De Angelis. Includes light lunch.

 

This exhibition will pay homage to the Dutch seventeenth-century artist, Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) and his exquisite scenes of daily life, which rank among the finest of the Dutch Golden Age. It will also highlight some of Metsu's lesser known achievements in the fields of history painting, portraiture and still life. Metsu started his career in Leiden, where he painted biblical scenes on a large format. After his move to Amsterdam in the middle of the 1650s, he changed his specialisation to intimate scenes of daily life. As Metsu's style became more meticulous in the 1660s, he focused increasingly on representing the pastimes of the upper class. He died at the age of thirty-seven, having painted a varied oeuvre of more than 130 paintings. Few of his colleagues were as versatile as Metsu and his handling of the brush was almost unrivalled. Moreover, his paintings display a unique approach to daily activities, marked by a psychological interest in the people he portrayed. An accompanying catalogue will be published to coincide with the exhibition.

 

Imogen Heap (pronounced /ˈɪmədʒɨn ˈhiːp/) (born 9 December 1977 in the London Borough of Havering) is a Grammy Award-winning British singer and songwriter from Romford, Havering. She is known not only for her work as part of Frou Frou but also her solo albums which she writes, produces, and mixes. In 2006, Heap was nominated for two Grammy Awards. She has produced three solo albums, the latest of which is 2009's Ellipse, which was an immediate North American chart success and earned Heap two Grammy nominations, winning Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.