Exhibitions
Snap happy
Before there was Hello!, OK! and Closer, there was Oggi. Oggi was the magazine my Italian mother used to flick…
Spring round-up
Jankel Adler (1895–1949), a Polish Jew who arrived in Glasgow in 1941, was invalided out of the Polish army, and…
Master of melancholy
Like other species, artists club together in movements not just for purposes of identification but for longevity. Individuals who don’t…
New ways of seeing
This exhibition examines a loosely knit community of artists and their interaction over a decade at the beginning of the…
Hanoverian trail
The 300th anniversary of George I coming to the British throne on 1 August 1714 is big news in his…
King of cut-outs
Artists who live long enough to enjoy a late period of working will often produce art that is radically different…
The gardens of Kent
How important is William Kent (1685–1748)? He’s not exactly a household name and yet this English painter and architect, apprenticed…
Hidden presence
One of the paintings in Arturo Di Stefano’s impressive new show at Purdy Hicks Gallery is called ‘Santa Croce’ and…
Acts of faith
It seems suitable that just round the corner from the Zurbarán exhibition at the Palais des Beaux Arts is the…
Bearing witness
Last week, three exhibitions celebrating the art of Germany; this week, a show commemorating the first world war fought against…
In tune with nature
Like most ambitious artists, Julian Cooper has been pulled this way and that by seemingly conflicting influences. The son and…
German giants
It’s German Season in London, and revealingly the best of three new shows is the one dealing with the most…
Senses working overtime
In 1914 Fernand Léger gave a lecture about modern art. By then recognised as a leading Cubist artist, he had…
Top of the form
When I visited the Richard Deacon exhibition at Tate Millbank, there were quite a lot of single men of a…
Raiders and traders
Exhibitions are made for two main reasons: education and entertainment. Although I recognise the importance of education I am, by…
Scabrous wit
I suspect I am not alone in finding it surprising to encounter at the close of this exhibition an unexpected…
A feast for the eyes
Tourists are attracted to queues, art lovers to quietude. So while the mass of Monet fans visiting Paris line up…
Dreams of space and light
Curtain walls, dreaming spires, crockets, finials, cantilevers, bush-hammered concrete, vermiculated rustication, heroic steel and delicate Cosmati work are all diverse…
Making history
In a crowded storeroom at Ikon, Birmingham’s contemporary art gallery, its director Jonathan Watkins is unwrapping the pictures for his…
Small wonders
In this round-up of exhibitions in London’s commercial galleries, I feature three shows of little-known but mature contemporary British artists.…
Brown studies
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609–64) was, I must admit, unknown to me until I visited this show, the only Castiglione I…
Independent thought
Last year saw the centenary of the London Group, a broad-based exhibiting body set up in a time of stylistic…
Scratching the surface
It is often said of John Craxton (1922–2009) that he knew how to live well and considered this more important…
Brush with boredom
The death of painting has been so often foretold — almost as frequently as its renaissance — that any such…
History man
Rediscovering the unduly neglected is one of the chief excitements of those who curate exhibitions and write books. And there’s…
