Meet the woman who designed Britain's revolutionary road signs
Laura Gascoigne meets Margaret Calvert, the designer who dragged British signposting into the modern era
A high-end car-boot sale of the unconscious: Colnaghi’s Dreamsongs reviewed
In 1772 the 15-year-old Mozart wrote a one-act opera set, like The Magic Flute, in a dream world. Il sogno…
The mediums who pioneered abstract art
The mediumistic art of various cranks, crackpots and old dowagers is finally being taken seriously – and about time too, says Laura Gascoigne
Imagine being married to Stanley Spencer
It sometimes rains in Cookham. It rained all day when I visited the Stanley Spencer Gallery to see the exhibition…
Figurative painting is back – but how good is any of it?
An oxymoron is a clever gambit in an exhibition title. The Whitechapel Gallery’s Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium…
The artistic response to the pandemic has so far been mind-numbingly banal
Travelling around Latin America three years ago, Stephen Chambers was attracted by pharmacy signs with pictograms advertising treatments to illiterate…
I wish John Chamberlain was still around to crush this hideous toothpaste-blue Ferrari
For three months art lovers have had nothing but screens to look at. As one New York dealer complained to…
Europe's eye-popping first glimpse of the Americas
The earliest depictions of the Americas were eye-popping, and shaped European art, says Laura Gascoigne
The artist who left no physical record of her work
While locked-down galleries compete to keep their artists in the public eye — or ear — by uploading interview podcasts,…
How to succeed in sculpture (without being a man)
Whee-ooh-whee ya-ya-yang skrittle-skrittle skreeeek… Is it a space pod bearing aliens from Mars? No, it’s a podcast featuring aliens from…
The gloriously indecent life and art of Aubrey Beardsley
In seven short years, Aubrey Beardsley mastered the art of outrage. Laura Gascoigne on the gloriously indecent illustrations of a singular genius
Pyramids of piffle: Tate Britain’s British Baroque reviewed
British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…
Dazzling and sex-fuelled: Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy reviewed
Picasso collected papers. Not just sheets of the exotic handmade stuff — though he admitted being seduced by them —……
How capitalism killed sleep
What can you make a joke about these days? All the old butts of humour are off limits. No wonder…
The enduring allure of ‘er indoors
‘She’s only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see. You may think she’s happy and free…
Why did Mrs Lowry hate her son’s paintings?
‘I often wonder what artists are for nowadays, what with photography and a thousand and one processes by which you…
A brief history of tea
It had to happen. Since almost everything became either ‘artisan’ or ‘curated’, conditions have been ripe for a curator of…
Why has British art had such a fascination with fire?
‘Playing God is indeed playing with fire,’ observed Ronald Dworkin. ‘But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus,…
British surrealism at its most remarkable and nightmarish
Holding the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936 was a coup for the British avant-garde, putting newbie surrealists such…
The joy of George Shaw’s miserable paintings of a Coventry council estate
All good narrative painting contains an element of allegory, but most artists don’t go looking for it on a Coventry…
Wicked, humorous and high-spirited: Dorothea Tanning at Tate Modern reviewed
Art movements come and go but surrealism, in one form or another, has always been with us. Centuries before Freud’s…
Enjoy a blast of Spanish sun from Joaquin Sorolla
Artists can be trained, but they are formed by their earliest impressions: a child of five may not be able…
Phyllida Barlow’s sculptural wonderland reigns supreme at the Royal Academy
‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’ If there’s an exception to prove Shaw’s rule, it’s Phyllida Barlow. The…
The first great English artist – the life and art of Nicholas Hilliard
When Henry VIII died in 1547, he left a religiously divided country to a young iconoclast who erased a large…
A short history of ice skating
In landscape terms, the Fens don’t have much going for them. What you can say for them, though, is that…
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