Francis Bacon: king of the self-made myth
In 1953, Francis Bacon’s friends Lucian Freud and Caroline Blackwood were concerned about the painter’s health. His liver was in…
On the trail of one of the first artists to paint ordinary things
The Master of Flémalle was one of the first painters to depict in detail the reality of ordinary things. But who was he? Martin Gayford finds a prime suspect
Bright and beautiful: the year’s best art books reviewed
When he was a student, the celebrated American modernist master Robert Rauschenberg once told me that his ‘greatest teacher’ —…
Antony Gormley on why sculpture is far superior to painting
In an extract from their book, Antony Gormley tells Martin Gayford that the 3-D will always trump the 2-D
One of the greatest of all outsider artists: Alfred Wallis at Kettle’s Yard reviewed
Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) should be an inspiration to all late starters. It was not until he had passed the age…
Entertaining – but there's one abomination: National Gallery's Sin reviewed
Obviously, we’re living through an era of censorious puritanism. Granted, the contemporary creeds are different from those of the 16th…
Ivan Morozov: the Russian businessman with a passion for the avant-garde
If you want to see the very best of Gauguin and Matisse, go east. That was the case in 1914…
Why the Royal Academy is wrong to consider selling their precious Michelangelo
Martin Gayford explains why the Royal Academy would be wrong to sell Michelangelo’s ‘Taddei Tondo’
Spectacular and mind-expanding: Tantra at the British Museum reviewed
A great temple of the goddess Tara can be found at Tarapith in West Bengal. But her true abode, in…
The beautiful upside-down world of Georg Baselitz
The hand is one of the first images to appear in art. There are handprints on the walls of caves…
We're wrong to think the impressionists were chocolate boxy
One Sunday evening in the autumn of 1888 Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin went for a walk. They headed…
The joy of socially distanced gallery-going
Not long after the pubs, big galleries have all started to reopen, like flowers unfolding, one by one. The timing…
How John Constable got masterpiece after masterpiece out of a tiny corner of rural Suffolk
John Constable’s paintings of a tiny corner of rural Suffolk teach us to see the beauty on our doorstep, says Martin Gayford
‘I think I’ve found a real paradise’: David Hockney interviewed
Martin Gayford talks to David Hockney about life in the Norman countryside under quarantine, how the iPad is better than paint and brush, and why he is not a communist
Are there ways in which virtual exhibitions are better than real ones?
Six months ago I published a book about travelling to look at works of art. One such journey involved a…
Strange, sinister and very Belgian: Léon Spilliaert at the Royal Academy reviewed
The strange and faintly sinister works of the Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert have been compared — not unreasonably — to…
How Jan van Eyck revolutionised painting
Jan van Eyck changed the art of picture-making more fundamentally than anyone who has ever lived, says Martin Gayford
Martin Gayford visits the greatest one-artist show on Earth
For a good deal of this autumn, I was living in Venice. This wasn’t exactly a holiday, I’d like to…
To fill a major Tate show requires a huge talent. Dora Maar didn’t have that
Dora Maar first attracted the attention of Pablo Picasso while playing a rather dangerous game at the celebrated left-bank café…
It’s yellow, not green, that’s the colour of jealousy
Making attributions to Leonardo da Vinci, the great art historian Adolfo Venturi once remarked, is like ‘picking up a red-hot…
Remarkable and imaginative: Fitzwilliam Museum’s The Art of Food reviewed
Eating makes us anxious. This is a feature of contemporary life: a huge amount of attention is devoted to how…
The extraordinary paintings of Craigie Aitchison
One of the most extraordinary paintings in the exhibition of work by Craigie Aitchison at Piano Nobile (96–129 Portland Road,…
The real Lucian Freud hated having his picture taken
One of Lucian Freud’s firmly fixed views about himself was ‘I’m not at all introspective’. This was, like many opinions…
The beauties of the universe are revealed in the paintings of Pieter de Hooch
In the early 1660s, Pieter de Hooch was living in an area of what we would now call urban overspill…
