It’s a lifetime of hard work being an artist
Once, when a number of Royal Academicians were invited to Buckingham Palace, the celebrated abstract painter John Hoyland (1934–2011) found…
Geoffrey Clarke’s imaginative talents knew no bounds
At the height of his fame in the mid-1960s, the sculptor Geoffrey Clarke (1924–2014) was buying fast cars and flying…
From cave painting to Maggi Hambling: the best Christmas art books
It’s been a memorably productive year for art books (I have published a couple myself), but certain volumes stand out.…
David Jones: painter, poet and mystic
David Jones (1895–1974) was a remarkable figure: artist and poet, he was a great original in both disciplines. His was…
‘This stuff goes on being alive’: Maggi Hambling on the power of painting
Maggi Hambling is 70 later this year, and a career that took off when she was appointed the first artist…
The pop artist whose transgressions went too far – for the PC art world
Allen Jones (born 1937) has been demonised. In 1969 he made a group of three sculptures of scantily-clad female figures.…
All my doubts about Anselm Kiefer are blown away by his Royal Academy show
In the Royal Academy’s courtyard are two large glass cases or vitrines containing model submarines. In one the sea has…
Curator-driven ambitions mar this Constable show at the V&A
The V&A has an unparalleled collection of hundreds of works by John Constable (1776–1837), but hardly anyone seems to know…
Is John Hoyland the new Turner?
What happens to an artist’s reputation when he dies? Traditionally, there was a period of cooling off when the reputation,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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