Tate modern
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…
Was Pierre Bonnard any good?
An attendant at an art gallery in France once apprehended a little old vandal, or so the story goes. He…
Peak Picasso: how the half-man half-monster reached his creative – and carnal – zenith
By 1930, Pablo Picasso, nearing 50, was as rich as Croesus. He was the occupant of a flat and studio…
The art of persuasion
It’s hard to admire communist art with an entirely clear conscience. The centenary of the October revolution, which falls this…
The Bilbao effect
Twenty years ago I wrote of the otherwise slaveringly praised Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao: I’m in a minority of, apparently,…
Giving Tate Modern a lift
Tate Modern, badly overcrowded, has built itself a £260 million extension to spread everyone about the place more. This means…
The counterfeiters
One day, in the autumn of 1960, a young Frenchman launched himself off a garden wall in a suburban street…
Best in show
Martin Gayford recommends the exhibitions to see — and to avoid — over the coming year
The man who made abstract art fly
One day, in October 1930, Alexander Calder visited the great abstract painter Piet Mondrian in his apartment in Paris. The…
Hitler’s émigrés
German-speaking refugees dragged British culture into the 20th century. But that didn’t go down well in Stepney or Stevenage, says William Cook
Bursting the bubble
The conventional history of modern art was written on the busy Paris-New York axis, as if nowhere else existed. For…
Ai Weiwei
In September, the Royal Academy of Arts will present a solo exhibition of works by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.…
Curiouser and curiouser
Art is not jewellery. Its value does not reside in the price of the materials from which it is made.…
Museum relic
Do we really need museums in the age of Wikipedia and Google? William Cook thinks we do but his children don’t agree
Sonia alone
In 1978, shortly before she died, the artist Sonia Delaunay was asked in an interview whether she considered herself a…
Double Dutch
‘Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting,’ Henri Matisse once advised, ‘should begin by cutting out his own tongue.’ Marlene…
Strokes of genius
The art on show over the coming year demonstrates that we still live in an age of mighty painters, says Martin Gayford
Art from another planet
‘Some day we shall no longer need pictures: we shall just be happy.’ — Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, 1966…
Spiritual sensations
Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) is one of the founding fathers of Modernism, and as such entirely deserves the in-depth treatment with…
King of cut-outs
Artists who live long enough to enjoy a late period of working will often produce art that is radically different…
Top of the form
When I visited the Richard Deacon exhibition at Tate Millbank, there were quite a lot of single men of a…
A look ahead
Andrew Lambirth reveals the treats on show in 2014
Feats of Klee
There is a school of thought that sees Paul Klee (1879–1940) as more of a Swiss watchmaker than an artist,…
