I’m hoping to catch an exhibition at London’s Lamb Gallery of drawings by the 93-year-old artist Jim Amaral, who has lived in Bogotà since 1957, previously with his wife Olga de Amaral. Covering five decades from the 1960s to the 2010s, the show spotlights how the couple’s courtship inspired many informal sketches, sent to each other as love letters. In the 1970s, Amaral used these as the basis for his simultaneously tender and explicit “Love Letter” series, some of which were painted over handwritten letters found at an flea market. Other works feature bizarre botanical and zoomorphic constructions. I have no real excuse for having not yet made it to Mayfair to see the works in person, aside from post-Frieze fatigue, but we still have until November 21!
London’s National Gallery: ‘Keep Away’ If You Want Trigger Warnings
Plus, an intimate Bloomsbury Group drawing is discovered, yet more U.S. pavilion drama in Venice, and other art world matters.
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Artnet, November 2, 2026
