Painting
How Philip Guston became a hero to a new generation of figurative painters
Why do painters represent things? There was a time when the answers seemed obvious. Art glorified power, earthly and divine,…
Proof that Rubens really was a champion of the female sex: Rubens & Women, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery reviewed
‘She is a princess endowed with all the virtues of sex; long experience has taught her how to govern these…
The splendour of Edinburgh’s new Scottish galleries
Claudia Massie on the spectacular new galleries that showcase the best of Scottish art for the first time
Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt?
Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt, asks Craig Raine
Lyrical and dreamlike: A World of Private Mystery – British Neo-Romantics, at the Fry Art Gallery, reviewed
‘My daughter’s moving to Saffron Walden, away from all this,’ said the railway man at Stratford station, gesturing at the…
The greatest artist chronicler of our times: Grayson Perry, at the Edinburgh Art Festival, reviewed
The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people…
An extraordinary woman: The Art of Lucy Kemp-Welch, at Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, reviewed
In March 1913 two horse painters met at the Lyceum Club to discuss the establishment of a Society of Animal…
Move fast to snap up one of Elizabeth Blackadder’s sleek cats at the Scottish Gallery
If there’s one thing the internet knows, it’s that cats sell. The Scottish painter Elizabeth Blackadder, who died in 2021…
Huge, impersonal canvases designed for the walls of billionaires: Tate Modern’s Capturing the Moment reviewed
‘Photography has arrived at a point where it is capable of liberating painting from all literature, from the anecdote, and…
Fascinating forgeries: Art and Artifice – Fakes from the Collection, at the Courtauld, reviewed
In 1998 curators at the Courtauld Institute received an anonymous phone call informing them that 11 drawings in their collection…
Joshua Reynolds’s revival
In front of the banner advertising the RA Summer Exhibition, the swagger statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) by Alfred…
The quiet genius of Gwen John
In the rush to right the historical gender balance, galleries have been corralling neglected women artists into group exhibitions: the…
Do we need another Lucian Freud exhibition?
Do we need another Lucian Freud exhibition? After years of exposure to his paintings of naked bodies posed like casualties…
There's much more to Winslow Homer than his dramatic seascapes
Winslow Homer may be too all-American for British tastes but a forthcoming retrospective could change all that, says Laura Gascoigne
Guston is treated with contempt: Philip Guston Now reviewed
Philip Guston is hard to dislike. The most damning critique levied against the canonical mid-century American painter is that he…
As cool and refreshing as a selection of sorbets: RA's Milton Avery show reviewed
‘I like the way he puts on paint,’ Milton Avery said about Matisse in 1953, but that was as much…
A showstopper is at the heart of this winning show: Dulwich Gallery's Reframed – The Woman in the Window reviewed
Themed exhibitions pegged to particular pictures in museum collections tend to be more interesting to the museum’s curators than to…
The women’s lips are pursed; the men’s are kissable: Glyn Philpot at Pallant House reviewed
Of all the photos of artists in the studio, the one of Glyn Philpot being served a martini by his…
Nobody paints the sea like Emile Nolde
In April, ten years after opening its gallery on the beach in Hastings, the Jerwood Foundation gifted the building to…
A brief introduction to Scottish art
When Nikolaus Pevsner dedicated his 1955 Reith Lectures to ‘The Englishness of English Art’, he left out the Scots. The…
The jewel-bright, mesmerisingly detailed pictures by Raqib Shaw are a revelation
Describing the Venice Biennale, like pinning down the city itself, is a practical impossibility. There is just too much of…
Artist, actor, social justice warrior, serial killer: the many faces of Walter Sickert
Artist, actor, social justice warrior, serial killer. Laura Gascoigne on the many faces of Walter Sickert
The beauty of gasholders
Dan Hitchens on the beauty of gasholders
You’d never guess from her art how passionate Gwen John was
‘Dearest Gwen,’ writes Celia Paul, born 1959, to Gwen John, died 1939, ‘I know this letter to you is an…
Valuable reassessment of British art: Barbican's Postwar Modern reviewed
Notoriously, the past is another country: what’s more, it’s a terrain for which the guidebooks need constantly to be rewritten.…
