Exhibitions
How a market town in Hampshire shaped Peggy Guggenheim
On 24 April 1937 Marguerite Guggenheim – known as Peggy – of Yew Tree Cottage, Hurst was booked by a…
The beauty of pollution
On the back of the British £20 note, J.M.W. Turner appears against the backdrop of his most iconic image. Voted…
The mesmerising Olympic posters designed by the likes of Warhol and Whiteread
You could be forgiven for assuming that the citizens of Paris weren’t exactly bursting with joy at the prospect of…
The most original sea painter since Turner? Lowry
In 1958 an elderly gentleman staying at the Castle Hotel in Berwick-upon-Tweed gave the receptionist a doodle he had made…
Breathtaking: Mary Cassatt at Work, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, reviewed
Work – in the sense of toil – is about the last thing a 19th-century painter wished to be associated…
Is there still life in British still life?
‘The tyrannical rule of nature morte is, at last, over,’ announced Paul Nash in the Listener in 1931. ‘Apples have…
The woman who revolutionised British fashion: Barbara Hulanicki interviewed
‘I was one of your original customers in Kensington Church Street,’ I tell the founder of Biba when we meet.…
Fascinating insight into the mind of Michelangelo
You’re pushing 60 and an important patron asks you to repeat an artistic feat you accomplished in your thirties. There’s…
It’s time to free art from being ‘interactive’ and ‘immersive’
The American artist and critic Brad Troemel once pointed out that art galleries have all turned into a kind of…
The latest Venice Biennale is ideologically and aesthetically bankrupt
Last week’s opening of the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale marks a watershed for the art world. In much…
How flabby our ideas of draughtsmanship have become
The term drawing is a broad umbrella, so in an exhibition of 120 works it helps to outline some distinctions.…
Impressionism is 150 years old – this is the anniversary show to see
The time that elapsed between the fall of the Paris Commune and the opening of the first proper impressionist exhibition…
The quiet brilliance of street photographer Saul Leiter
This is the second exhibition of mid-century New York street photography at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. The first,…
‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’: Sophie Calle interviewed
‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’ Thus Sophie Calle objected to the first line of…
The importance of lesbianism to British modernism: Double Weave, at Ditchling Museum, reviewed
The name of Ditchling used to be synonymous with Eric Gill, but since he was outed as an abuser of…
How the Georgians invented nightlife
Dan Hitchens on the Georgian obsession with lavish light shows and nocturnal adventures
