Exhibitions
The death of the Southbank Centre
The roots of the Southbank Centre’s current crisis stretch back to before the pandemic, says Oliver Basciano
We're wrong to think the impressionists were chocolate boxy
One Sunday evening in the autumn of 1888 Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin went for a walk. They headed…
Figurative painting is back – but how good is any of it?
An oxymoron is a clever gambit in an exhibition title. The Whitechapel Gallery’s Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium…
The guileful, soulful art of Khadija Saye
Gwyneth Paltrow has a new neighbour. On the same block in Notting Hill as Gwynie’s Goop store, with its This…
Culture is going underground: meet the rebel army
Leaf Arbuthnot and Igor Toronyi-Lalic on the new cultural rebels
I didn’t expect to be so moved – galleries reopen
I’m in Mayfair and I’m boarding an airplane. Or rather, I’m boarding an approximation of an airplane. In the centre…
Sumptuous and saucy: Compton Verney's virtual tour of their Cranach show
‘Naughty little nudes,’ my history of art teacher used to say of Cranach’s Eves and Venuses. Aren’t they just? Coquettish…
William Boyd on the miraculous snaps of boy genius Jacques Henri Lartigue
William Boyd on the miraculous snaps of boy genius Jacques Henri Lartigue
Welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – Billy Connolly interviewed
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
Are there ways in which virtual exhibitions are better than real ones?
Six months ago I published a book about travelling to look at works of art. One such journey involved a…
The grisly art of Revolutionary France
There was a basket of thick red wool and two pairs of large knitting needles at the start of University…
Mother nature is finally getting the art she deserves
Exhibitions about fungi, bugs and trees illustrate the depth, range and vitality of a growing field of art, says Mark Cocker
The gloriously indecent life and art of Aubrey Beardsley
In seven short years, Aubrey Beardsley mastered the art of outrage. Laura Gascoigne on the gloriously indecent illustrations of a singular genius
Strange, sinister and very Belgian: Léon Spilliaert at the Royal Academy reviewed
The strange and faintly sinister works of the Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert have been compared — not unreasonably — to…
How Jan van Eyck revolutionised painting
Jan van Eyck changed the art of picture-making more fundamentally than anyone who has ever lived, says Martin Gayford
My step-grandmother would have loved this show: Unbound At Two Temple Place reviewed
My step-grandmother Connie was an inspired needlewoman. For ten years, as a volunteer for the charity Fine Cell Work, she…
The art of pregnancy
Pregnancy has always been a public spectacle – and as the Foundling Museum’s new exhibition shows, a dangerous one
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…