Andrew Lambirth

The big picture: two books on artists and their lives

23 September 2023 9:00 am

Essays by Michael Peppiatt on the artists who quicken his heart, and encounters between Richard Cork and his favourites, including Jasper Johns, Henry Moore and Gilbert & George

The European influence on modern American art

11 March 2023 9:00 am

New York’s Atelier 17 became a creative hub in the 1940s, where émigré Surrealists shared ideas with artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell

Why Tate Modern seems more like a playground than an art gallery

3 September 2022 9:00 am

This book covers the period 1878-2000, offering thought provoking commentary on some 120 years of experiments in being modern, and…

Alive with innovation: British art between the world wars

4 June 2022 9:00 am

When I mentioned the subject of this book to someone reasonably well-informed about 20th-century British art, the response was: ‘Isn’t…

Like burst balloons after a party: the last paintings of John Hoyland

28 August 2021 9:00 am

When the internationally acclaimed abstract painter John Hoyland died in 2011 at the age of 76, a large chunk of…

Ghosts in a landscape: farming life through the eyes of Thomas Hennell

6 March 2021 9:00 am

Thomas Hennell is one of that generation of painters born in 1903 whose collective achievements are such an adornment of…

Rembrandt remains an enigma

24 January 2020 10:00 pm

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–69) is not only the presiding genius of the Dutch golden age of painting, but one…

Some artists talk for hours unprompted. Others, such as Patrick Caulfield (above), find the simplest question often difficult to answer

It’s a lifetime of hard work being an artist

12 January 2019 9:00 am

Once, when a number of Royal Academicians were invited to Buckingham Palace, the celebrated abstract painter John Hoyland (1934–2011) found…

‘Chalices’ — a lesser known enamel work by Geoffrey Clarke, 1950

Geoffrey Clarke’s imaginative talents knew no bounds

2 December 2017 9:00 am

At the height of his fame in the mid-1960s, the sculptor Geoffrey Clarke (1924–2014) was buying fast cars and flying…

Walter Crane and James Silvester Sparrow, detail of Psalm 148, window (1896), Holy Trinity Church, Hull, Yorkshire. From Arts & Crafts Stained Glass, by Peter Cormack (Yale)

From cave painting to Maggi Hambling: the best Christmas art books

28 November 2015 9:00 am

It’s been a memorably productive year for art books (I have published a couple myself), but certain volumes stand out.…

‘Capel-y-ffin’, 1926–7 (watercolour and gouache)

David Jones: painter, poet and mystic

26 September 2015 8:00 am

David Jones (1895–1974) was a remarkable figure: artist and poet, he was a great original in both disciplines. His was…

Forces of nature: Maggi Hambling with ‘Amy Winehouse’, a painting exhibited at her Walls of Water show last year

‘This stuff goes on being alive’: Maggi Hambling on the power of painting

18 April 2015 9:00 am

Maggi Hambling on Rembrandt, Twombly and the power of art

The pop artist whose transgressions went too far – for the PC art world

1 November 2014 9:00 am

After years of being effectively banned from exhibiting in his own country, Allen Jones finally reaches the RA with his first major UK retrospective. Andrew Lambirth meets him

‘Winter Landscape (Winterlandschaft)’, 1970, by Anselm Kiefer

All my doubts about Anselm Kiefer are blown away by his Royal Academy show

11 October 2014 9:00 am

In the Royal Academy’s courtyard are two large glass cases or vitrines containing model submarines. In one the sea has…

‘Water-meadows near Salisbury’, 1829/30, by John Constable

Curator-driven ambitions mar this Constable show at the V&A

4 October 2014 9:00 am

The V&A has an unparalleled collection of hundreds of works by John Constable (1776–1837), but hardly anyone seems to know…

‘14.11.65’ by John Hoyland

Is John Hoyland the new Turner?

27 September 2014 9:00 am

What happens to an artist’s reputation when he dies? Traditionally, there was a period of cooling off when the reputation,…

‘Moonrise and Pale Dancer’ by Derek Hyatt

The man who brought Cubism to New York

20 September 2014 9:00 am

The American Jewish artist Max Weber (1881–1961) was born in Belostok in Russia (now Bialystok in Poland), and although he…

‘A Battery Shelled’, 1919, by Percy Wyndham Lewis

The Imperial War Museum finds a deadly place to display first world war masterpieces

13 September 2014 9:00 am

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

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) claimed that nothing has really happened until it has been recorded, so this new exhibition at the…

‘I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policies’, 2011,by Coral Stoakes

Agitprop, love trucks and leaflet bombs: the art of protest

30 August 2014 9:00 am

Titles can be misleading, and in case you have visions of microwave ovens running amok or washing machines crunching up…

‘Futurist Motif’, 1920, by Gerardo Dottori

Futurism’s escape to the country

23 August 2014 9:00 am

Futurism, with its populist mix of explosive rhetoric (burn all the museums!) and resolutely urban experience and emphasis on speed,…

‘The Sutherland Cup’ by Angie Lewin

The perfect excuse to get out all the best Ravilious china

16 August 2014 9:00 am

A day trip to the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne is a summer pleasure, and two concurrent shows are proving…

‘Equivalents for the Megaliths’, 1935, by Paul Nash

A lost opportunity to show John Nash at his best

9 August 2014 9:00 am

John Northcote Nash (1893–1977) was the younger brother of Paul Nash (1889–1946), and has been long overshadowed by Paul, though…

‘Goose Woman’, c.1840, by George Smart

Why did it take so long to recognise the worth of British folk art?

2 August 2014 9:00 am

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?

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) is one of the founding fathers of Modernism, and as such entirely deserves the in-depth treatment with…