Matisse to Freud: a critic's choice

(Shipley Gallery, Gateshead to Sunday 2 September)
This Hayward touring exhibition of highlights from the bequest that Alexander Walker (Evening Standard cinema critic) left to British Museum is probably the best show to have hit Tyneside in months, but sadly remains a closely guarded secret. Prints and drawings cover the range of C20th artists and formerly filled every inch of Walker's London flat. For me, the highlights were the small sea and stars woodcuts by Vija Celmins but there's more than a hundred excellent works from the famous and not so famous here. It all goes to prove that Walker had better taste in art than he did in films. One not to be missed.