Exhibitions
Imagine being married to Stanley Spencer
It sometimes rains in Cookham. It rained all day when I visited the Stanley Spencer Gallery to see the exhibition…
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…
Looking at Barnett Freedman makes me weep at the government's dismal graphics
Among the spoils of a lockdown clear-out was a box of my grandmother’s books: Woolf, Austen, Mitford and The Complete…
Figurative painting is back – but how good is any of it?
An oxymoron is a clever gambit in an exhibition title. The Whitechapel Gallery’s Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium…
The artistic response to the pandemic has so far been mind-numbingly banal
Travelling around Latin America three years ago, Stephen Chambers was attracted by pharmacy signs with pictograms advertising treatments to illiterate…
The guileful, soulful art of Khadija Saye
Gwyneth Paltrow has a new neighbour. On the same block in Notting Hill as Gwynie’s Goop store, with its This…
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…
I wish John Chamberlain was still around to crush this hideous toothpaste-blue Ferrari
For three months art lovers have had nothing but screens to look at. As one New York dealer complained to…
I didn’t expect to be so moved – galleries reopen
I’m in Mayfair and I’m boarding an airplane. Or rather, I’m boarding an approximation of an airplane. In the centre…
Sumptuous and saucy: Compton Verney's virtual tour of their Cranach show
‘Naughty little nudes,’ my history of art teacher used to say of Cranach’s Eves and Venuses. Aren’t they just? Coquettish…
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, but it’s the art that really excites
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, says Laura Freeman, but it’s her art that really excites
The grisly art of Revolutionary France
There was a basket of thick red wool and two pairs of large knitting needles at the start of University…
Every bit as well observed as Rembrandt – and often funnier: Nicolaes Maes reviewed
Nicolaes Maes (1634–93) relished the simple moments of daily life during the Dutch Golden Age. A woman peeling parsnips over…
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…
Slight: Steve McQueen at Tate Modern reviewed
Steve McQueen’s ‘Static’ (2009) impresses through its sheer directness — and it’s very far from static. A succession of helicopter-tracking…
Pyramids of piffle: Tate Britain’s British Baroque reviewed
British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…
My step-grandmother would have loved this show: Unbound At Two Temple Place reviewed
My step-grandmother Connie was an inspired needlewoman. For ten years, as a volunteer for the charity Fine Cell Work, she…
Spiralling tributes to air, flight and lift-off: Naum Gabo at Tate St Ives reviewed
‘Plunderers of the air’, Naum Gabo called the Luftwaffe planes. In Cornwall, during the second world war, Gabo kept cuttings…
Dazzling and sex-fuelled: Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy reviewed
Picasso collected papers. Not just sheets of the exotic handmade stuff — though he admitted being seduced by them —……
Enchanting – but don’t fall for the mummified rubber duck in the gift shop: Tutankhamun reviewed
Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…
Why did David Bomberg disappear?
David Bomberg was only 23 when his first solo exhibition opened in July 1914 at the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea.…
The forgotten masterpieces of Indian art
As late as the end of the 18th century, only a handful of Europeans had ever seen the legendary Mughal…
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…
A museum-quality car-boot sale: V&A’s Cars reviewed
We were looking at a 1956 Fiat Multipla, a charming ergonomic marvel that predicted today’s popular MPVs. Rather grandly, I…
