Exhibitions

Decorative magnificence

The Indian Portrait: 1560-1860 National Portrait Gallery, until 20 June Mark Shields: Here and Elsewhere Grosvenor Gallery, 21 Ryder Street, SW1, until 14 May   I suspect that the first thought in many people’s minds to be associated with the Indian portrait is of the delicately detailed miniatures produced at the Mughal court in the

Russian danger

Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism Tate Modern, until 17 May Art is always at its most dangerous — but perhaps also its most endearing — when it approaches the idealistic. In the wake of the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the group of artists who called themselves Constructivists came to believe that abstraction could transform

Oxford treasures

Beyond the Work of One — Oxford College Libraries and their Benefactors  The Bodleian Library, Oxford, until 1 November, admission free A few years ago, my old tutor, the much- missed Angus Macintyre of Magdalen College, gave me a letter that meant I could get into the Codrington Library — Nicholas Hawksmoor’s 1716 gem at

Mixed blessings

Summer Exhibition Royal Academy, until 17 August The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, now in its 240th year, is still an event, even if visitors don’t dress up quite as ornately as once they did. For the first time I attended Buyers’ Day. The atmosphere is convivial but competitive, as people jostle to see