Exhibitions
Enchanting – but don’t fall for the mummified rubber duck in the gift shop: Tutankhamun reviewed
Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…
Meet Congo, the Leonardo of chimps, whose paintings sell for £14,500
Three million years ago one of our ancestors, Australopithecus africanus, picked up a pebble and took it home to its…
To fill a major Tate show requires a huge talent. Dora Maar didn’t have that
Dora Maar first attracted the attention of Pablo Picasso while playing a rather dangerous game at the celebrated left-bank café…
How capitalism killed sleep
What can you make a joke about these days? All the old butts of humour are off limits. No wonder…
A museum-quality car-boot sale: V&A’s Cars reviewed
We were looking at a 1956 Fiat Multipla, a charming ergonomic marvel that predicted today’s popular MPVs. Rather grandly, I…
The extraordinary paintings of Craigie Aitchison
One of the most extraordinary paintings in the exhibition of work by Craigie Aitchison at Piano Nobile (96–129 Portland Road,…
What really happened at Troy?
Heinrich Schliemann had always hoped he’d find Homer’s Troy. Although he had no archaeological background to speak of, he did…
John Flaxman is the missing link between superhero movies and Homer
As you enter the forecourt of the Royal Academy, you see them. A row of artistic titans, carved in stone,…
The truth about food photography
While looking at the photographs of food in this humorous exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, I thought of how hopelessly…
![English National Opera's triumphant new production of Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, directed by Daniel Kramer. [Photo: Alistair Muir]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2019/10/Opera_Exhibitions.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
A triumph: ENO’s Mask of Orpheus reviewed
ENO’s Mask of Orpheus is a triumph. It’s also unintelligible. Even David Pountney, who produced the original ENO staging in…
The beauties of the universe are revealed in the paintings of Pieter de Hooch
In the early 1660s, Pieter de Hooch was living in an area of what we would now call urban overspill…
Pilferer, paedophile and true great: Gauguin Portraits at the National Gallery reviewed
On 25 November 1895, Camille Pissarro wrote to his son Lucien. He described how he had bumped into his erstwhile…
A cast of Antony Gormley? Or a pair of giant conkers? Gormley’s new show reviewed
While Sir Joshua Reynolds, on his plinth, was looking the other way, a little girl last Saturday morning was trying…
On photography, shrines and Maradona: Geoff Dyer’s Neapolitan pilgrimage
At the Villa Pignatelli in Naples there is an exhibition by Elisa Sighicelli: photographs of bits and pieces of antiquity…
Whooshing seedlings and squabbling stems: Ivon Hitchens at Pallant House reviewed
Set down the secateurs, silence the strimmers. Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow. Ivon Hitchens was a…
Why was Sigmund Freud so obsessed with Egypt?
Twenty years ago, I visited the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna with a party of American journalists. Even in those…
Where are the art fans in Edinburgh? Getting their eyes frazzled by Bridget Riley
The old observatory on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill may be the most favourably positioned art venue in the world. Recently resurrected…
Before Quentin Blake, there was Nancy Ekholm Burkert – Dahl’s forgotten illustrator
Bunnies were out. Beatrix Potter had the monopoly on rabbits, kittens, ducks and Mrs Tittlemouses. ‘I knew I had to…
Olafur Eliasson’s art is both futuristic and completely traditional – which is why I love it
Superficially, the Olafur Eliasson exhibition at Tate Modern can seem like a theme park. To enter many of the exhibits,…
Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern reviewed
Steel flowers bend in a ‘breeze’ generated by magnetic pendulums. This is the first thing you see as you enter…
The women who invented collage – long before Picasso and co.
The art-history books will tell you that sometime around 1912, Picasso invented collage, or, actually, perhaps it was Braque. What…
No masterpieces but there are beautiful touches: Félix Vallotton at the RA reviewed
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) was a member of the Nabis (the Prophets), a problematically loose agglomeration of painters, inspired by Gauguin…
Cindy Sherman – selfie queen
The selfie is, of course, a major, and to me mysterious, phenomenon of our age. The sheer indefatigability of selfie-takers,…
Remarkable and powerful – you see her joining the old masters: Paul Rego reviewed
In 1965 a journalist asked Paula Rego why she painted. ‘To give a face to fear,’ she replied (those were…
There is a jewel of a painting at Gagosian’s Francis Bacon show
‘It is no easier to make a good painting,’ wrote Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, than it is…
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