Book review – art history
Andy Warhol would have revelled in the chaos of his legacy
Having signed fake screenprints as his own, Warhol left his work open to questionable rulings by an authentication board, causing collectors much frustration and expense
The splendour and squalor of Venice
In his celebration of Venetian art, Martin Gayford is keenly alert to the city’s spectacular contradictions
A feast for foot fetishists
It is always interesting to see what art historians get up to when none of the rest of us is…
The London painters that conquered the world
This is an important, authoritative work of art criticism that recognises schools of painters, yet displays the superior distinctions of…
Pathos and humanity in pictures of abject misery
In 1971 the late Linda Nochlin burst onto the public scene with her groundbreaking essay, ‘Why Have There Been No…
The codes and codswallop surrounding Leonardo da Vinci
‘If you look at walls soiled with a variety of stains or at stones with variegated patterns,’ Leonardo da Vinci…
The subtle magic of Antony Gormley wraps the world
Martin Caiger-Smith’s huge monograph on Antony Gormley slides out of its slipcase appropriately enough like a block of cast iron.…
High wire act
‘Mid-century modern’ is the useful term popularised by Cara Greenberg’s 1984 book of that title. The United States, the civilisation…
Why we love unfinished art
An unfinished painting can provide a startling glimpse of the artist at work. But the common tendency to prefer it to a finished work is being taken to extremes, says Philip Hensher
Self-portrait as Margaret Thatcher in a pink power-suit — by Grayson Perry
Well, he’s back. Though you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d never been away. Fresh from delivering the Reith lectures, exhibitions…
Sexy selfies through the ages
At nearly eight foot high and five foot wide, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s portrait of herself with two of her students is…
Meet Paul Nash's great enemy at the Slade
Randolph Schwabe (b. 1885) was a measured man in art and in life. His drawings are meticulous, closely observed models…
Velázquez’s vanishing act
This is an extraordinary story. In 1845 John Snare, an unremarkable Reading bookseller, goes to an auction in a defunct…
David Jones: painter, poet and mystic
David Jones (1895–1974) was a remarkable figure: artist and poet, he was a great original in both disciplines. His was…
Rory McEwen: man of many talents — and among the greatest of all flower painters
It seems odd that a singer, musician, television performer and sculptor who typified the 1960s as vividly as Rory McEwen…
Museum curators and art forgers are two of a kind: they’re both vain and self-deluded
Louis the Decorator and his chums in the antiques trade use the word ‘airport’ adjectivally and disparagingly. It signifies industrially…
Spoilt for choice: we are all curators now
As words commonly used to write about the visual arts become increasingly useful to advertisers, ‘to curate’ is becoming the…
A strain of mysticism is discernible in the floating colour fields of Mark Rothko’s glowing canvases
Philip Hensher on the perverse, tormented Mark Rothko, whose anger and depression — often painfully apparent in his art — only increased with his success
Cabinet of curiosity: we do not even know for sure the maker of the Sixtus Cabinet at Stourhead
Italian cabinets and tables decorated with inlaid semi-precious stones known as ‘pietre dure’ were a ‘must-have’ for English milords returning…
From classical to post-modern: a beginner’s guide
My career at school and after was greatly enhanced by a series of books called The Bluffer’s Guide to….These gave…
The hidden history of one of the greatest treasures of the early Renaissance: Florence’s Brancacci chapel
In 1439 Abraham of Souzdal, a Russian bishop visiting Florence, was in the audience in Santa Maria del Carmine for…
Marble-mania: when England became a spiritual heir to the ancients
Phrases such as ‘Some aspects of…’ are death at the box-office, so it is not exactly unknown for the titles…
Exactly how much fun was it being an impoverished artist in Paris?
What he really wanted, Picasso once remarked, was to live ‘like a pauper, but with plenty of money’. It sounds…
The lost Victorian who sculpted Churchill
Ivor Roberts-Jones was in many ways the right artist at the wrong time. Had the sculptor been born a few…
Reynolds produced some of the finest portraits of the 18th century – and a few of the silliest
On Monday 21 April 1760 Joshua Reynolds had a busy day. Through the morning and the afternoon he had a…
