Exhibitions
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…
‘What ho, Giotto’
‘If I go to war, I go on condition I can have Giotto, the Basilica of Assisi book, Fra Angelico…
Making a splash
Turner’s contemporaries regarded him primarily as a marine painter. This perception extended to his persona, with many who met him…
Street cred
There hasn’t been a decent Daumier exhibition in this country for more than half a century, so art lovers have…
Take your pick
The current exhibition in the Sainsbury Wing claims to be a portrait of Vienna in 1900, but in fact offers…
No laughing matter
Pop Art Design, curated by the Vitra Design Museum and currently at the Barbican, opens with Richard Hamilton’s 1956 ‘Just…
Time travelling
The title of the Lisson Gallery’s new show, Nostalgic for the Future, could sum up the gallery’s whole raison d’être.…
Fishy fantasies
One of the more exotic attractions at the 1939–40 World’s Fair in New York was Salvador Dalí’s ‘Dream of Venus…
Visual poetry
The famous court case in which Ruskin accused Whistler of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’ continues…
Visions of the sublime
The V&A’s remarkable survey of Chinese painting begins quietly with a beautiful scroll depicting ‘Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk’,…
Smouldering addiction
My addiction to Chinese landscape painting began in 1965 at the V&A, in a travelling exhibition of the Crawford Collection…
Feats of Klee
There is a school of thought that sees Paul Klee (1879–1940) as more of a Swiss watchmaker than an artist,…
Poetic mists of memory
One sometimes forgets when looking at French 19th-century art that the painting revolution that produced Impressionism coincided with a political…
Flight of the imagination
Towards the end of his life, Georges Braque described his vision in the following terms: ‘No object can be tied…
