Painting
If ‘wokeness’ is over, can someone please tell the Fitzwilliam Museum?
Optimists believe that the tide of ‘wokeness’ is now ebbing. If so, the message has not yet reached Cambridge, whose…
Why was this fêted Mexican painter left out of the canon?
Think of a Mexican painting, and chances are you’ll conjure up an image of an eyebrow-knitted Frida Kahlo, or a…
The art of sexual innuendo
Paula Rego’s 2021 retrospective at Tate Britain demonstrated that, among art critics, ambiguity is still highly prized as a measure…
‘The possibilities of paint are never-ending’: Sir Frank Bowling interviewed
‘I’m full of excitement waiting for this to dry out,’ Sir Frank Bowling exclaims. We are sitting in his studio,…
The greatest paintings are always full of important unimportant things
Goya to Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection, at the Courtauld, consists of a selection of 25 absorbing paintings…
The true birthplace of the Renaissance
The baby reaches out to touch his mother’s scarf: he studies her face intently, and she focuses entirely on him.…
The plain-speaking bloke from Warrington who painted only for himself
Born in 1932, Eric Tucker created his art not for exhibition or in pursuit of fame but simply because he felt compelled to do so
‘Innovation is not enough’: meet visionary English painter Roger Wagner
In the side chapel of the church of St Giles’, at the northern apex of the historic Oxford thoroughfare, hangs…
The rediscovery of the art of Simone de Beauvoir’s sister
An exhibition of the art of Hélène de Beauvoir (1910-2001), sister of the great Simone, opened in a private gallery…
Was Brazil the real birthplace of modernism?
A paradox of art history: to understand the artists of the past, it helps to study how, and where, they…
The otherworldly artist who made his name at The Spectator
There is something otherworldly about Rory McEwen’s paintings of plants, leaves and fruit. They are indisputably beautiful, often breathtakingly so,…
Tirzah Garwood just isn’t as good as her husband Eric Ravilious
Tirzah Garwood, wife of the more famous Eric Ravilious, is having a well-deserved moment in the sun, benefiting from this…
We’ve got Francis Bacon all wrong
You have to hand it to the curators of this excellent survey of Francis Bacon’s portraits. Not only have they…
How a single year in Florence changed art forever
The story goes that one day early in the 16th century Leonardo da Vinci was strolling through Florence with a…
The triumph of surrealism
When Max Ernst was asked by an American artist to define surrealism at a New York gathering of exiles in…
Fog, tea and full English breakfasts: Monet and London, at the Courtauld, reviewed
For the maids on the top floors of the Savoy, everything was in turmoil. The 6th had been commandeered by…
The art inspired by the 1924 Paris Olympics was a very mixed bag
George Orwell took a dim view of competitive sport; he found the idea that ‘running, jumping and kicking a ball…
Inside the mind of Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh only got one major review in his career, and he was mystified by it. When the critic Albert…
How Michael Craig-Martin changed a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree
‘Of all the things I’ve drawn,’ Michael Craig-Martin reflects, ‘to me chairs are one of the most interesting.’ We are…
The great French painter who had no time for France
Describing himself as the ‘savage from Peru’, Paul Gauguin avoided French society when he could, returning to Polynesia in 1895, where he spent his final years on the island of Hiva Oa
Why has Leonora Carrington still not had a big exhibition?
‘It had nothing to endow it with the title of studio at all,’ was Edward James’s first impression of Leonora…
The importance of copying
The lunatics were once in charge of the asylum. The first six directors of the National Gallery were all artists:…
Porcelain-painting during the French revolution
People don’t accumulate stuff any more. When the late Victorian houses on our street change hands their interiors are stripped…
This British surrealist is a revelation
When the 15-year-old Maggi Hambling arrived at Benton End in Hadleigh, Suffolk – home of the East Anglian School of…
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…
