Gallery faces exciting year ahead

The year kicks off with David Dawson: Working With Lucian Freud (Jan 28-May 20).

Gallery spokeswoman Emma Robertson promises “an extraordinary insight into the notoriously private world of the late great painter Lucian Freud through the eyes of his model and studio assistant David Dawson.

“For 20 years Dawson witnessed the creation of some of the most celebrated paintings of our age as well as being the model for numerous paintings himself. But each afternoon, after his work with Freud was done, Dawson would return home to do his own painting. This exhibition brings together some of his street scenes and cityscapes placing them alongside key pieces by Freud and photographs of the studio.”

Also starting in January is Enid Marx: The Breuning-Eve Gift (Jan 10-Feb 26).

“Designer, illustrator, printmaker, Marx was a contemporary of artists such as Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Peggy Angus. During her lifetime Marx created an extraordinary array of textiles, postage stamps, repeat patterns for both fabric and paper, posters for the London Underground, book jackets and book illustrations. The exhibition showcases the collection of her prints presented to the Gallery in 2006.”

Keith Vaughan: A Centenary Celebration runs from March 10-June 10 - an exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of the British painter Keith Vaughan, born in Selsey.

“Largely self-taught, Vaughan formed friendships with the painters Graham Sutherland and John Minton during the war, becoming a leading ‘Neo-Romantic’ artist in the 1940s and 1950s. Concentrating on the male nude in the landscape, Vaughan developed an increasingly abstract painterly style in later years. The exhibition features both his drawings and studies and major paintings from across his career.”

March also sees the start of Chichester Festival Theatre: 50 Years of Artistic Innovation (March 3-June 3)

“The theatre has long been both a source of inspiration for artists and a place to experiment with innovative costume and set designs. To mark the Chichester Festival Theatre’s 50th anniversary this exhibition celebrates how visual theatre artists responded to the challenge of designing for the first purpose-built Thrust Stage Theatre in the UK.

“A selection of models, costume drawings, costumes and props from the early productions will be specially assembled and the theatre park setting will be recreated in Pallant House

Gallery by theatre designer Professor Pamela Howard.”