Lucian Freud
German refugees transformed British cultural life - but at a price
German-speaking refugees dragged British culture into the 20th century. But that didn’t go down well in Stepney or Stevenage, says William Cook
The only art is Essex
When I went to visit Edward Bawden he vigorously denied that there were any modern painters in Essex. That may…
The artist who only turned into a major painter once he became a homicidal maniac
Charles Dickens’s description of Cobham Park, Kent, in The Pickwick Papers makes it seem a perfect English landscape. Among its…
Frank Auerbach: frightened of heights, dogs, driving, swimming — but finding courage through painting
With a career of more than 60 years so far, Frank Auerbach is undoubtedly one of the big beasts of…
Is Julian Barnes right to think Lucian Freud will survive? Jonathan Meades thinks not
The subject of the least characteristic essay in this engrossing collection of meditations on painters, painters’ lives, painting and reactions…
The Mad Boy, Peter Watson, Cecil Beaton and the limo — by Sofka Zinovieff
It would not have surprised their friends in the 1930s when Peter Watson had a fling with my grandfather, Robert…
Sargent, National Portrait Gallery, review: he was so good he should have been better
The artist Malcolm Morley once fantasised about a magazine that would be devoted to the practice of painting just as…
The death of the life class
‘Love of the human form’, writes the painter John Lessore, ‘must be the origin of that peculiar concept, the Life…
The Duke of Wellington also invades Christmas art books
Art books fall naturally into various categories, of which the most common is probably the monograph. Judith Zilczer’s A Way…
Rembrandt at the National Gallery: the greatest show on earth
Martin Gayford sees Rembrandt’s late works at the National Gallery – is this the greatest show on earth?
The age of the starving artist
Philip Hensher on the precarious fortunes of even the most gifted 19th-century artists
Taki: our leaders are weak and powerless in the face of religious fanatics
This Christmas our thoughts need to be with our fellow Christians who are being threatened in the Bible lands. No…
'Squiggle, squiggle, ooh, good...' Tate St Ives shows how sexy the octopus can be
One of the more exotic attractions at the 1939–40 World’s Fair in New York was Salvador Dalí’s ‘Dream of Venus…
Breakfast with Lucian, by Geordie Greig - review
According to the medical historian Professor Sonu Shamdasani, Sigmund Freud was not the best, nor actually the most interesting, psychoanalyst…
