Exhibitions
Why everyone loves Rembrandt
Talking of Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’ to a friend, Vincent van Gogh went — characteristically — over the top. ‘I…
The man who brought Cubism to New York
The American Jewish artist Max Weber (1881–1961) was born in Belostok in Russia (now Bialystok in Poland), and although he…
The Imperial War Museum finds a deadly place to display first world war masterpieces
The Imperial War Museum has reopened after a major refit and looks pretty dapper, even though it was overrun by…
The Bloomsbury painters bore me
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) claimed that nothing has really happened until it has been recorded, so this new exhibition at the…
Agitprop, love trucks and leaflet bombs: the art of protest
Titles can be misleading, and in case you have visions of microwave ovens running amok or washing machines crunching up…
Futurism’s escape to the country
Futurism, with its populist mix of explosive rhetoric (burn all the museums!) and resolutely urban experience and emphasis on speed,…
The perfect excuse to get out all the best Ravilious china
A day trip to the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne is a summer pleasure, and two concurrent shows are proving…
How Richard Wilson made Wales beautiful
‘I recollect nothing so much as a solemn — bright — warm — fresh landscape by Wilson, which swims in…
A lost opportunity to show John Nash at his best
John Northcote Nash (1893–1977) was the younger brother of Paul Nash (1889–1946), and has been long overshadowed by Paul, though…
Why did it take so long to recognise the worth of British folk art?
British folk art has been shamefully neglected in the land of its origin, as if the popular handiwork of past…
Malevich: Are Tate visitors ready for this master of modernism?
Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) is one of the founding fathers of Modernism, and as such entirely deserves the in-depth treatment with…
Had Hollywood not lured him away, Dennis Hopper could have made his name as a photographer
In an age when photographs have swollen out of all proportion to their significance, and are mounted on wall-sized light…
Painted, sculpted and stuffed: a history of the bird in art
These days, as the sparrows and starlings so common in my youth are growing scarce, there’s less need for a…
Charles Hadcock – taking on the age of speculation with sculpture in the City
As the boundary between auction house and art dealer blurs yet further, with auctioneers acting increasingly by private treaty as…
Oceans and forests in kaleidoscopic flow – discovering Keith Grant
For decades I’ve been aware of the work of Keith Grant (born 1930), but it is only in recent years…
A comic drawn by Bob Monkhouse in which a superhero battles giant penises? Yes, it’s all here
Fwoooosh! That, were someone to write a strip about it, would be the sound of a thousand comic books going…
The painter who channelled the forces of gravity
Tragically, Ian Welsh (1944–2014) did not live to see this exhibition of his latest work. Diagnosed with terminal cancer on…
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition offers up the good, the bad and the ugly – and a sore neck
One of the great traditions of the RA’s Summer Exhibition has always been that each work submitted was seen in…
When Mondrian was off the grid
I find it easy to forget that Piet Mondrian is a Dutch artist. The linear, gridlocked works he is famed…
It took 11 years to bring Bill Viola to St Paul’s Cathedral – but it was worth it
Deans are a strange breed. Growing up in the Church of England, I met a wide range, their cultural tastes…
Kenneth Clark wasn’t happy simply popularising art, he liked to collect it and shape it too
Earlier this year, I sat down and watched Kenneth Clark’s groundbreaking TV series Civilisation. I vaguely remember when it was…
Can Lynn Chadwick finally escape the 1950?
Lynn Chadwick was born 100 years ago in London, and died in 2003 at his Gloucestershire home, Lypiatt Park, where…
Josef Albers: roaring diagonals and paradisiacal squares
Josef Albers (1888–1976) is best known for his long engagement with the square, which he painted in exquisite variation more…
We’re very lucky Philip II was so indulgent with Titian
In Venice, around 1552, Titian began work on a series of six paintings for King Philip II of Spain, each…
The brilliant neurotics of the late Renaissance
In many respects the average art-lover remains a Victorian, and the Florentine Renaissance is one area in which that is…
