Portraits
Condoms in 18th-century painting
Waldemar Januszczak and Bendor Grosvenor’s art podcast has returned after nearly five years. It is, says Januszczak, ‘the podcast they…
Why is the National Portrait Gallery’s collection so poor?
The recent announcement that the National Portrait Gallery has purchased two works by Sonia Boyce and Hew Locke for its…
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…
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…
At last we see Henry VIII’s wives as individuals
Specialist knowledge of Tudor portraiture, book bindings, music and jewellery enables us to see each woman anew, possessed of a distinct life and afterlife
Heads, shoulders, knees and toes
We need to talk about Eric. In Jennifer Packer’s portrait of her friend and fellow artist, Eric N. Mack sits…
Grandeur and subtlety
The Victorian dictum ‘every picture tells a story’ is true of Paula Rego’s works, but it’s only part of the…
The great image-maker
‘Holbein redeemed a whole era for us from oblivion,’ remarks the author of a trilogy of novels set at Henry…
It’s hard to think of finer images of children than Gainsborough’s
When he knew that he was dying, Thomas Gainsborough selected an unfinished painting from some years before and set it…
Lorenzo Lotto’s 16th century portraits come startlingly close to photography
You can, perhaps, glimpse Lorenzo Lotto himself in the National Gallery’s marvellous exhibition, Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. At the base of…
The artist more fond of flowers and vegetables than people – and who can blame him
I have occasionally mused that there is plenty of scope for a Tate East Anglia — a pendant on the…
Intelligent, poetic and profound: Tacita Dean at the National and National Portrait galleries
Andy Warhol would probably have been surprised to learn that his 1964 film ‘Empire’ had given rise to an entire…
The most impressive array of work to be seen in London in years: Cézanne’s Portraits reviewed
The critic and painter Adrian Stokes once remarked on how fortunate Cézanne had been to be bald, ‘considering the wonderful…
Maximum wattage
On his deathbed in 1904, George Frederic Watts saw a extraordinary spectacle. He witnessed the universe coming into being: the…
Old masters
The Fitzwilliam Museum is marking its bicentenary with an exhibition that takes its title from Agatha Christie: Death on the…
Life after death
This is not the biggest exhibition at Edinburgh and it will not be the best attended but it may be…
Easy does it
The artist Malcolm Morley once fantasised about a magazine that would be devoted to the practice of painting just as…
Depicting the Prophet
Two months ago I was sitting beside the tomb of a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, telling a story about…
Rough-Huhne
I love Grayson Perry. You might almost call him the anti-Russell Brand: a genuinely talented artist who also has some…
Dear Mary
Q. A scholarly book of great importance to me appears to have gone missing from my library. It was heavily…
Dear Mary
Q. I live far away from my brother and his family, but went to stay with them recently for the…
A bold artistic vision
Sam Leith on the exasperating, charismatic painter who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee
