Exhibitions
What was Allen Ginsberg doing in Wales? LSD
‘Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,/ daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,/ grass shimmers green…’ The characteristic…
When Raquel Welch danced on a table at Cinecittà
Before there was Hello!, OK! and Closer, there was Oggi. Oggi was the magazine my Italian mother used to flick…
The hidden, overlooked and undervalued: Andrew Lambirth’s spring roundup
Jankel Adler (1895–1949), a Polish Jew who arrived in Glasgow in 1941, was invalided out of the Polish army, and…
Henri Le Sidaner: the artist who fell between two schools
Like other species, artists club together in movements not just for purposes of identification but for longevity. Individuals who don’t…
A fresh perspective on reassuringly familiar artists
This exhibition examines a loosely knit community of artists and their interaction over a decade at the beginning of the…
The German devotion to high culture is quite shaming
The 300th anniversary of George I coming to the British throne on 1 August 1714 is big news in his…
The Matisse Cut-Outs is a show of true magnificence
Artists who live long enough to enjoy a late period of working will often produce art that is radically different…
William Kent was an ideas man - the Damien Hirst of the 18th century
How important is William Kent (1685–1748)? He’s not exactly a household name and yet this English painter and architect, apprenticed…
It’s the whisper you’ve got to listen for in Arturo Di Stefano’s paintings
One of the paintings in Arturo Di Stefano’s impressive new show at Purdy Hicks Gallery is called ‘Santa Croce’ and…
Francisco de Zurbarán had a Hollywood sense of drama
It seems suitable that just round the corner from the Zurbarán exhibition at the Palais des Beaux Arts is the…
The great and the good and the gassed and the dead
Last week, three exhibitions celebrating the art of Germany; this week, a show commemorating the first world war fought against…
Julian Cooper's rock profiles
Like most ambitious artists, Julian Cooper has been pulled this way and that by seemingly conflicting influences. The son and…
Upside down and right on top: the power of George Baselitz
It’s German Season in London, and revealingly the best of three new shows is the one dealing with the most…
The tubular joys of Fernand Léger
In 1914 Fernand Léger gave a lecture about modern art. By then recognised as a leading Cubist artist, he had…
Richard Deacon – from Meccano into art
When I visited the Richard Deacon exhibition at Tate Millbank, there were quite a lot of single men of a…
The British Museum's Vikings: part provincial exhibit, part gripping drama
Exhibitions are made for two main reasons: education and entertainment. Although I recognise the importance of education I am, by…
Hannah Höch – from Dada firebrand to poet of collage
I suspect I am not alone in finding it surprising to encounter at the close of this exhibition an unexpected…
Who knew that Cézanne had a sense of humour?
Tourists are attracted to queues, art lovers to quietude. So while the mass of Monet fans visiting Paris line up…
The best exhibition of architecture I have ever experienced
Curtain walls, dreaming spires, crockets, finials, cantilevers, bush-hammered concrete, vermiculated rustication, heroic steel and delicate Cosmati work are all diverse…
The Ikon Gallery's greatest hits
In a crowded storeroom at Ikon, Birmingham’s contemporary art gallery, its director Jonathan Watkins is unwrapping the pictures for his…
Four artists you ought to know — and a famous one you can know better
In this round-up of exhibitions in London’s commercial galleries, I feature three shows of little-known but mature contemporary British artists.…
'Castiglione: Lost Genius' loses his genius in a sea of brown
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609–64) was, I must admit, unknown to me until I visited this show, the only Castiglione I…
'Uproar!' The Ben Uri gallery punches above its weight
Last year saw the centenary of the London Group, a broad-based exhibiting body set up in a time of stylistic…
John Craxton was more gifted than the Fitzwilliam show suggests
It is often said of John Craxton (1922–2009) that he knew how to live well and considered this more important…
Painting Now doesn't represent painting now. Thank goodness
The death of painting has been so often foretold — almost as frequently as its renaissance — that any such…
