Hockney
The importance of copying
The lunatics were once in charge of the asylum. The first six directors of the National Gallery were all artists:…
Catching the zeitgeist
‘Photography has arrived at a point where it is capable of liberating painting from all literature, from the anecdote, and…
The joy of prints
Artists’ prints have been around for almost as long as the printed book. Indeed, they have similar origins in Gutenberg’s…
In the 1960s the brightest star of British art was Richard Smith – and you can see why
It is easy to assume that the contours of art history are unchanging, its major landmarks fixed for ever. Actually,…
Happy ending
‘In many ways,’ Georg Baselitz muses, ‘I behaved against the grain of the times I grew up in.’ The era…
Net effect
In the mid-1990s the art world got excited about internet art (or ‘net.art’, as those involved styled it). This new…
A kind of magic
Talking of Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’ to a friend, Vincent van Gogh went — characteristically — over the top. ‘I…
