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My recent travels took me to Windsor Castle where I spent five weeks in the Royal Library researching the drawings by the Genoese artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione for an exhibition on the same to open in London in 2013. London was home to many exhibitions, perhaps most famous of which is the current exhibition on Leonardo at the National Gallery, but also to shows dedicated to Gerhard Richter at Tate Modern, John Martin at Tate Britain, Degas and the Ballet at the Royal Academy, and at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, I stumbled on the Heart of the Great alone: Scott, Shackleton & Antarctic Photography, an exhibition which I thought I'd see in 30 minutes but which keep me there spellbound for over two hours! At the Ashmoleon Museum in Oxford, I spent a morning regarding the stunning gem of an exhibition dedicated to Claude's drawings. And back in the States I was able to catch the Willem de Kooning retrospective at Moma in New York City, an exhibition not to be missed if at all possible. Since I've been spending time on a few jets, I've managed to cover half of Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith's 954 page tome Van Gogh: the Life (2011), which reads like a novel and difficult to put down. I also highly recommend the brief novelette by Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (2011), which won this year's Booker Man literary award in the UK. Our preparations for the van Gogh exhibition continue apace, as it does for the other exhibitions in the P&S pipeline. We have lots to be thankful for, including your support of the Department of Painting & Sculpture. Stay tuned for forthcoming information on our Great Collections event; another famous speaker for our annual meeting; and not the least for the exciting van Gogh exhibition that opens for one venue only at the DAM in October 2012. And don't forget to tell ten people about FOPAS and what a great support group we have! FOPAS Board 2011-2012