If you are in Lyon and you’re looking for an interesting day out of the cold and filled with warm luscious colors and expressive shapes and mind bending abstraction the museum maintains a rich collection of 20th Century modern art works. The exhibit illustrates the major movements featuring Picasso, Matisse, Dubuffet, Bacon and many others. The Musée des Beaux-Arts displays nearly 200 works, some never seen by the public, long kept in private collection, are now visible. Our expat expo sponsor Société Générale has contributed to this amazing exhibition from its corporate art collection.

FYI: This collection is on display until 15 February 2010. Be prepared to pay if you are over the age of 26, 4 to 7 euros. The museum is open every day except Tuesdays and holidays from 10 AM to 6 PM, Friday from 10:30 AM to 6 PM - Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 20 place des Terreaux, 69001 Lyon - Tel: +33 (0) 472 10 1740/52

In a New York state of mind, then hop an Air France flight to the Big Apple or just click your mouse and travel virtually to the Whitney Museum. The modern abstract works of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) are on full display. This body of abstraction by O’Keeffe is often overlooked. The exhibition includes more than 125 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures by O’Keeffe as well as selected examples of Alfred Stieglitz’s famous photographic portrait series of O’Keeffe. What’s great is you can download the audio guide which features commentary by exhibition curator Barbara Haskell and archival audio footage of Georgia O’Keeffe discussing iconic works.

Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction, at the Whitney Museum from James Kalm on Vimeo.

The wonderful collection of modern art at London’s Tate Museum is a modern art lovers dream location. The online resources are phenomenal: interviews with the artists on the Tate Channel, podcasts, multiple languages, nobody does it better than the Tate! The museum has almost 60,000 works in its collection. Before going do a database search of what you want to explore and if you simply want to learn more about art every work in their collection has its own online information page and the majority are illustrated. There is no need to be blue this winter!