visual art

Why did this brilliant Irish artist fall off the radar?

28 October 2023 9:00 am

Sir John Lavery has always had a place in Irish affections. His depiction of his wife, Hazel, as the mythical…

The greatest artist chronicler of our times: Grayson Perry, at the Edinburgh Art Festival, reviewed

2 September 2023 9:00 am

The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people…

Joshua Reynolds’s revival

1 July 2023 9:00 am

In front of the banner advertising the RA Summer Exhibition, the swagger statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) by Alfred…

Birmingham barbershop meets the Folies-Bergère: Hurvin Anderson’s Salon Paintings, at the Hepworth Wakefield, reviewed

17 June 2023 9:00 am

There’s a nice irony to the title Salon Paintings when the salon in question is a barbershop, an irony that…

The art of the monarchy

17 September 2022 9:00 am

Michael Hall on how the Queen made her mark on the Royal Collection

Nationalise the royal collection!

4 June 2022 9:00 am

It is high time we did justice to the treasures of the royal collection, says Jack Wakefield

Fails to dispel the biggest myth of all: Whitechapel Gallery's A Century of the Artist’s Studio reviewed

26 March 2022 9:00 am

Picture the artist’s studio: if what comes to mind is the romantic image of a male painter at his easel…

Valuable reassessment of British art: Barbican's Postwar Modern reviewed

19 March 2022 9:00 am

Notoriously, the past is another country: what’s more, it’s a terrain for which the guidebooks need constantly to be rewritten.…

Beautiful and revealing: The Three Pietàs of Michelangelo, at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence, reviewed

5 March 2022 9:00 am

The room is immersed in semi-darkness. Light filters down from above, glistening on polished marble as if it were flesh.…

Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning art scene

5 March 2022 9:00 am

Stuart Jeffries on Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning art scene

An ouroboros of vacuity that is immune to its own failure: Kaws online at the Serpentine Gallery

29 January 2022 9:00 am

The second most interesting thing about this digital exhibition is that it is not for art critics like me. I…

Ethereal and allusive, all nuance and no schmaltz: Helen Frankenthaler, at Dulwich Gallery, reviewed

15 January 2022 9:00 am

In 1950 the 21-year-old painter Helen Frankenthaler, fresh out of college, went to an exhibition at New York’s Betty Parson’s…

This radical Nativity is also one of the great whodunnits of art history

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Martin Gayford on a radical Nativity that is the subject of one of the great whodunnits of art history

How crazy was Louis Wain?

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Before Tom Kitten, before Felix the Cat, before Thomas ‘Tom’ Cat, Sylvester James Pussycat Sr, Top Cat and Fat Freddy’s…

The supreme pictures of the Courtauld finally have a home of equal magnificence

20 November 2021 9:00 am

When the Courtauld Gallery’s impressionist pictures were shown at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2019, the Parisian public…

The tyranny of the visual

6 November 2021 9:00 am

Stuart Jeffries on the tyranny of the visual

The best podcasts to help you become a better painter

30 October 2021 9:00 am

There’s a great documentary film on Netflix at the moment about the late artist Bob Ross, he of the happy…

Joan Eardley deserves to be ranked alongside Bacon and de Kooning

17 July 2021 9:00 am

Claudia Massie on the unjustly neglected artist Joan Eardley, who deserves to be ranked alongside Auerbach, Bacon and de Kooning

The world's first robot artist discusses beauty, Yoko Ono and the perils of AI

29 May 2021 9:00 am

Stuart Jeffries discusses beauty, Yoko Ono and the world’s disappointments with the first robot artist

Why Thomas Becket still divides opinion

22 May 2021 9:00 am

The verdict is still out on Thomas Becket, says Dan Hitchens, but there’s no doubting the brilliance of the art he inspired

How has this complete original been sidelined?

22 May 2021 9:00 am

A party of disorderly couples has gatecrashed the Picture Gallery at Bath’s Holburne Museum, climbing on to the antique furniture,…

The art of the asparagus

15 May 2021 9:00 am

Manet’s ‘Botte d’asperges’ are probably the most famous asparagus in the world. The artist painted the delicious white- and lilac-tinged…

‘I’ve seen the bare bones of London’: street painter Peter Brown interviewed

1 May 2021 9:00 am

‘I’ve been seeing the bare bones of London,’ explains the landscape artist Peter Brown, who is known affectionately as ‘Pete…

The art of storing and unveiling

24 April 2021 9:00 am

The way an object is stored can magnify its beauty and enhance expectation. Joanna Rossiter wonders whether the opening up of galleries will have the same effect on an art-starved public

The artists ensnared by the capitalist system they affect to despise

24 April 2021 9:00 am

Stuart Jeffries on the artists ensnared by the capitalist system they affect to despise