Exhibitions
Going Dutch
In debates about what should and should not be taught in art school, the subject of survival skills almost never…
Halloween hire
To use a vulgar phrase, I can’t get my head around this exhibition. It seems anything but ‘vulgar’. Daintily laid…
Romantic modern
In 1932 Paul Nash posed the question, is it possible to ‘go modern’ and still ‘be British?’ — a conundrum…
Going Dutch
In debates about what should and should not be taught in art school, the subject of survival skills almost never…
Face time
As a chat-up line it was at least unusual. On 8 January 1927, a 46-year-old man approached a young woman…
Face time
As a chat-up line it was at least unusual. On 8 January 1927, a 46-year-old man approached a young woman…
Face time
As a chat-up line it was at least unusual. On 8 January 1927, a 46-year-old man approached a young woman…
Overshadowing all the rest
We don’t know what Caravaggio himself would have made of Beyond Caravaggio, the new exhibition at the National Gallery which…
Overshadowing all the rest
We don’t know what Caravaggio himself would have made of Beyond Caravaggio, the new exhibition at the National Gallery which…
All things bright and beautiful
For much of the Middle Ages, especially from 1250–1350, ‘English work’ was enormously prized around Europe from Spain to Iceland.…
All things bright and beautiful
For much of the Middle Ages, especially from 1250–1350, ‘English work’ was enormously prized around Europe from Spain to Iceland.…
Food of love
Modern Britain scratches its head over children who are overfed, not underfed, while guilt-ridden mothers stand accused of feeding children…
Skinny dipping
For a 21st-century gallery, a Victorian collection can be an embarrassment. Tate Modern got around the problem by offloading its…
Food of love
Modern Britain scratches its head over children who are overfed, not underfed, while guilt-ridden mothers stand accused of feeding children…
Skinny dipping
For a 21st-century gallery, a Victorian collection can be an embarrassment. Tate Modern got around the problem by offloading its…
In the shadow of Picasso
‘My painting is an act of decolonisation,’ declared Wifredo Lam. These are the first words you read on entering the…
In the shadow of Picasso
‘My painting is an act of decolonisation,’ declared Wifredo Lam. These are the first words you read on entering the…
Time to change the record
Back in the high optimism of the 2008 presidential campaign, one of Barack Obama’s more extravagant hopes was that ‘the…
Recycling the avant-garde
One overcast afternoon in late July I took a train to Norfolk. It seemed a good time and place to…
Recycling the avant-garde
One overcast afternoon in late July I took a train to Norfolk. It seemed a good time and place to…
Beauty and the banal
In 1965 William Eggleston took the first colour photograph that, he felt, really succeeded. The location was outside a supermarket…
Beauty and the banal
In 1965 William Eggleston took the first colour photograph that, he felt, really succeeded. The location was outside a supermarket…
First impressions
The last boat I saw in the galleries on the Mound was a canoe that the Scottish painter Jock McFadyen…
First impressions
The last boat I saw in the galleries on the Mound was a canoe that the Scottish painter Jock McFadyen…
Privates on parade
In 1927, Georgia O’Keeffe announced that she would like her next exhibition to be ‘so magnificently vulgar that all the…
