Arts and culture
American road trip
Like a lot of Australians I look at what is happening in America with sad bemusement if not alarm. Over…
A.N. Wilson
Kathy Lette says that during lockdown she has been reading Dickens. Her choice illustrates the enduring appeal of Charles Dickens…
Australian arts
Back in my now rather distant days of regular residence in Britain, I listened regularly to a radio program called…
James Darling striding the shores of Limebuners’ Bay
‘Just as I am’ is the recurrent opening line of a hymn written in 1835 by Charlotte Elliott. It was…
Victorian burglars
Spare a thought for Victorian burglars. Just when they thought they could go back to ransacking South Yarra mansions while…
Different words
If you’d been in our house during the Coon cheese debacle you would have heard me shouting at the TV:…
Language notes
One of the most intriguing expressions to come out of the pandemic so far is ‘deep cleaning’. We read that…
Pierre Soulages
A French painting purchased in Melbourne in 1953 has been repatriated selling for $5.26m earlier this month in Paris. For…
Mystery portrait
Shortly after moving to Manhattan in the noughties I was strolling through the West Village when I came across a…
David Hockney A closer winter tunnel, February-March 2006
The National Gallery of Victoria has closed again ‘until further notice’. The rest of the country is more fortunate, at…
Relief
Recently I touched on the subject of evaluating works of art prompted by what seemed to me rather an empty…
Jessie Traill: A biography
She could have been one of our great-aunts. She was from that remarkable generation of educated, unmarried women who chose…
Wendy Bowman, 2019 by David Darcy Darling Portrait Prize 2020
She is not a theoretical or idealogical environmentalist. Wendy Bowman became an activist when her crops were ruined by polluted…
Keith Urban using a Maton guitar, recording Gimme Shelter in Olympic Studios, London
We are critical of ourselves for not designing or manufacturing things any more. Well, there is a contrary example in…
Laughing Child by John Brack
In a futile attempt at participating in the current cultural revolution, I tried to suffer ‘harm and offence’ from an…
Richard Tognetti
This week the Australia Chamber Orchestra should have been delighting audiences with their usual brilliant performances to celebrate the 30th…
Belgravia
Belgravia is the rather coldly beautiful residential part of London bounded by Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Buckingham Palace. It is also…
Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney Festival
To state the obvious, these are extremely testing times for the performing arts and live entertainment generally. Although galleries are…
Cover of May issue of Apollo
We are all being digitised one way or another. Performing arts companies, not able to perform, are gamely putting themselves…
Dame Mary Gilmore working from home in 1952
She lived in a flat in Kings Cross, was a lifelong socialist, a regularly observant Presbyterian, a Dame of the…
Queens of print
The Spectator has been celebrating its 10,000th UK issue with justifiable pride; it is an astounding achievement. Australia has long…
Geraldine Brooks and Darleen Bungey
Major award-winning biographies of Arthur Boyd and John Olsen have preceded the third book by Darleen Bungey. It is less…
The Elgin Marbles
He grew up in Eastwood on Sydney’s Northern Line. Geoffrey Robertson’s brilliant career got off to a flying start with…
Geoffrey Blainey
He coined the phrase ‘tyranny of distance’ which not only entered the language but encapsulated the view that many Australians…
Anne Glenconner
It is said that Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine from the plague. Some have been suggesting that this year’s…
