Exhibitions
A trip down Mammary Lane
The V&A is selling £35 Agent Provocateur pants. This is, of course, a business deal because Agent Provocateur — along…
Why do some museums insist on playing piped music into exhibitions?
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
Sound and fury
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
Ancient Egypt’s obsession with death was in fact a preoccupation with life
The Fitzwilliam Museum is marking its bicentenary with an exhibition that takes its title from Agatha Christie: Death on the…
Old masters
The Fitzwilliam Museum is marking its bicentenary with an exhibition that takes its title from Agatha Christie: Death on the…
A lot of art is trickery - and all the better for it
One day, in the autumn of 1960, a young Frenchman launched himself off a garden wall in a suburban street…
The counterfeiters
One day, in the autumn of 1960, a young Frenchman launched himself off a garden wall in a suburban street…
RA’s Giorgione show is so rich it’s worth returning to several times
Walter Sickert was once shown a room full of paintings by a proud collector, who had purchased them on the…
Repeat prescription
Walter Sickert was once shown a room full of paintings by a proud collector, who had purchased them on the…
V&A's Botticelli Reimagined has too many desperate pretenders
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
Topsy-turvy
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
Hell made fun – the joy of Hieronymus Bosch
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
Hellzapoppin’
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
Part bijou Kiefer, part woozy Vuillard: the paintings of Andrew Cranston
The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…
Internal affairs
The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…
Warhol the traditionalist: the Ashmolean Museum show reviewed
When asked the question ‘What is art?’, Andy Warhol gave a characteristically flip answer (‘Isn’t that a guy’s name?’). On…
‘So quick and chancy’
When asked the question ‘What is art?’, Andy Warhol gave a characteristically flip answer (‘Isn’t that a guy’s name?’). On…
The link between herbaceous borders and the avant-garde
Philip Larkin once remarked that Art Tatum, a jazz musician given to ornate, multi-noted flourishes on the keyboard, reminded him…
Show me the Monet
Philip Larkin once remarked that Art Tatum, a jazz musician given to ornate, multi-noted flourishes on the keyboard, reminded him…
Cool, beguiling, Duchampian set of still lives from Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery
Michael Craig-Martin has had a paradoxical career. He is, I think, a disciple of Marcel Duchamp. But the latter famously…
Disciple of Duchamp
Michael Craig-Martin has had a paradoxical career. He is, I think, a disciple of Marcel Duchamp. But the latter famously…
A paean to the fleshy delights and tacky excess of Soho at Christmas
This Christmas, says Stephen Smith, we should raise a glass to the fleshy delights of Soho’s Raymond Revueba
A paean to the fleshy delights and tacky excess of Soho
The other evening, surrounded by Christmas shoppers in the West End of London, I happened to glance up at the…
How pop is Peter Blake?
Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked,…
In a class of their own
Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked,…
