Royal academy
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…
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…
Dazzling and sex-fuelled: Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy reviewed
Picasso collected papers. Not just sheets of the exotic handmade stuff — though he admitted being seduced by them —……
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…
Full of lovely paintings that might lead you astray: The Renaissance Nude reviewed
Early in the 16th century, Fra Bartolomeo painted an altarpiece of St Sebastian for the church of San Marco in…
Phyllida Barlow’s sculptural wonderland reigns supreme at the Royal Academy
‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’ If there’s an exception to prove Shaw’s rule, it’s Phyllida Barlow. The…
The odd couple: Bill Viola / Michelangelo at the RA reviewed
The joint exhibition of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Bill Viola at the Royal Academy is, at first glance, an extremely improbable…
Full of fabulous, but baffling, things: Oceania reviewed
At six in the morning of 20 July 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson first set eyes on a Pacific Island. As…
How lucky we are to have the Royal Academy
What is the Royal Academy? This question set me thinking as I wandered through the crowds that celebrated the opening…
A sumptuous feast of an exhibition: Charles I at the Royal Academy reviewed
Peter Paul Rubens thought highly of Charles I’s art collection. ‘When it comes to fine pictures by the hands of…
It’s the thought that counts
During a panel discussion in 1949, Frank Lloyd Wright made an undiplomatic comment about Marcel Duchamp’s celebrated picture of 1912,…
Object lesson
Why did Henri Matisse not play chess? It’s a question, perhaps, that few have ever pondered. Yet the great artist…
RA’s Giorgione show is so rich it’s worth returning to several times
Walter Sickert was once shown a room full of paintings by a proud collector, who had purchased them on the…
Renaissance master? Rascal? Thief? In search of Giorgione
Question-marks over attribution are at the heart of a forthcoming Giorgione exhibition. Martin Gayford sifts through the evidence
The link between herbaceous borders and the avant-garde
Philip Larkin once remarked that Art Tatum, a jazz musician given to ornate, multi-noted flourishes on the keyboard, reminded him…
Galleries are getting bigger - but is there enough good art to put in them?
Martin Gayford recommends the exhibitions to see — and to avoid — over the coming year
Edmund de Waal’s diary: Selling nothing, and why writers need ping-pong
On the top landing of the Royal Academy is the Sackler Sculpture Corridor, a long stony shelf of torsos of…
The World Goes Pop at Tate Modern - our critic goes zzzzz
The conventional history of modern art was written on the busy Paris-New York axis, as if nowhere else existed. For…
Ai Weiwei: the perfect Asian artist for lazy western curators
In September, the Royal Academy of Arts will present a solo exhibition of works by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.…
The forgotten Swiss portraitist and his extraordinary pastels: Jean-Etienne Liotard at the Scottish National Gallery reviewed
This is not the biggest exhibition at Edinburgh and it will not be the best attended but it may be…
Poetic or pretentious? Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust at the Royal Academy reviewed
Someone once asked Joseph Cornell who was his favourite abstract artist of his time. It was a perfectly reasonable question…
Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition reviewed: a jumble sale with pizzazz
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has very little in common with the Venice Biennale. However they do share one characteristic.…
Richard Diebenkorn at the Royal Academy reviewed: among the best visual evocations of LA there are
It is true that, like wine, certain artists don’t travel. Richard Diebenkorn, subject of the spring exhibition in the Royal…
Rubens and His Legacy at the Royal Academy reviewed: his imitators fall short of their master miserably
The main spring offering at the Royal Academy, Rubens and His Legacy: Van Dyck to Cézanne, teaches two useful lessons.…
How will the British public take to Rubens’s fatties?
Are Rubens’s figures too fat for the British to appreciate them? Martin Gayford investigates
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