The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Bold Tendencies is a seasonal sculpture exhibition, events venue and bar — in overall effect, a sort of hipster adventure playground — concealed in the disused upper levels of the multistorey car park opposite Peckham Rye railway station. Bold Tendencies is a seasonal sculpture exhibition, events venue and bar — in overall effect, a sort
To celebrate Elizabeth Blackadder’s 80th birthday, the Scottish National Gallery is staging a landmark retrospective (until 2 January 2012) spanning the last six decades of the artist’s career. To celebrate Elizabeth Blackadder’s 80th birthday, the Scottish National Gallery is staging a landmark retrospective (until 2 January 2012) spanning the last six decades of the artist’s
One of the highlights of the Royal Collection is Gainsborough’s ‘Diana and Actaeon’, a painting I always make a point of visiting when I am viewing a new temporary exhibition in the Queen’s Gallery One of the highlights of the Royal Collection is Gainsborough’s ‘Diana and Actaeon’, a painting I always make a point of
As regular readers of this column will know, I am not a great admirer of photography exhibitions, but the current show in the RA’s Sackler Galleries is more enjoyable than most. I have long loved the work of André Kertész and Brassaï, and besides presenting a lavish selection of their photographs, this show offers the
When a major artist dies while an exhibition of his or her work is up and running, there is inevitably a surge in visitor numbers. Consequently, the death of Cy Twombly at the beginning of last month has sent along to Dulwich a number of people who didn’t know his work to find out what
It’s difficult to believe that John Hoyland is dead. He was a man so full of life, with such appetite for living, that his absence from our midst makes no sense. Even when grievously ill in the past months, he was more likely to engage in anecdote and tell jokes than complain of his increasingly
One of the art books purchased in recent months that I’ve most enjoyed has been Arthur Boyd: Etchings and Lithographs, published in 1971. Boyd was an Australian painter, potter and printmaker, born in 1920 in Melbourne, who came to England in 1959 and made his home in this country. A deeply interesting image-maker, he came
The Fry Art Gallery is housed in a Victorian Gentleman’s Gallery of two main rooms, built in 1856 for the Quaker banker Francis Gibson. The Fry Art Gallery is housed in a Victorian Gentleman’s Gallery of two main rooms, built in 1856 for the Quaker banker Francis Gibson. It was first intended to accommodate his
The basement galleries of the Sainsbury Wing are darker than ever for this intriguing redisplay of some of the oldest paintings in the National Gallery. The atmosphere attempts to recreate the penumbral gloom of church and chapel in which these paintings were originally to be seen, before impoverished religious foundations flogged them to dealers and
Alasdair Palmer marvels at a series of Veronese frescoes at Palladio’s Villa Barbaro It has included repairing the roof and strengthening the walls, as well as redecorating the interior, and it has taken almost as long as it took to build the original structure — but work on Andrea Palladio’s last building, the Tempietto at
Vorticism is often referred to as the only British 20th-century art movement of international importance, but the work of the Vorticists — Wyndham Lewis, Edward Wadsworth, Gaudier-Brzeska and their associates — has up to now not been widely known. Vorticism is often referred to as the only British 20th-century art movement of international importance, but
There are just 26 drawings and watercolours in the magnificent exhibition at Lowell Libson, but they are all of such quality and interest that the show is a feast of connoisseurship and visual delight. Selected by Libson and Christopher Baker from the National Gallery of Scotland, the range of work gives a distinct flavour of
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), diminutive aristocrat and radical artist, was roundly travestied in John Huston’s 1952 film Moulin Rouge, and at once entered the popular imagination as an atrociously romanticised figure doomed for early death. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), diminutive aristocrat and radical artist, was roundly travestied in John Huston’s 1952 film Moulin Rouge, and
The resident ravens of the Tower of London seem to croak a little louder these days. A few yards from their gathering spot, a golden eagle, traditional symbol of power and kingship, perches on a military standard, keeping watch. It is one of several exhibits on display at the newly refurbished Fusilier Museum in the
This year, the sequence of galleries has been subtly altered, and for a change we enter the fabled Summer Exhibition (sponsored by Insight Investment) through the Octagon rather than Gallery 1. This brings the visitor straight into the heart of the show, and it’s quite a good idea at this point to turn right into
In the Mellon Gallery of the Fitzwilliam is an unashamedly rich and demanding exhibition of Italian drawings, ranging from the 15th to the 20th century. I say ‘demanding’ because you need to look closely and with attention at these works — not simply to decipher what is going on (the narrative component), but to appreciate
‘Not something I’d want on my wall,’ said an English lady visitor to Antwerp’s Rockox House, standing in front of a painting of wolves attacking cattle. ‘Not something I’d want on my wall,’ said an English lady visitor to Antwerp’s Rockox House, standing in front of a painting of wolves attacking cattle. ‘Nor that,’ said
Cleanliness was nowhere near godliness in 17th-century Europe — except in Delft, where God came second. The Wellcome Collection’s examination of humanity’s relationship with dirt begins in Vermeer’s city, where thousands of girls with pearl earrings scrubbed hearths for a living. Delftware, those distinctive blue and white ceramic tiles so common in antique shops, was
William Cook takes refuge from the modern world at an exhibition of the artist’s paintings of his beloved Salisbury I’d always thought of Constable’s paintings of Salisbury Cathedral as grand, majestic things — but seeing them again in Salisbury, with Richard Constable, the artist’s great-great grandson, you begin to look at these splendid pictures in
Over the years Chris Beetles must have made the pencil-wielding fingers of Quentin Blake and Ronald Searle itch with a desire to draw him. He presents a vigorously compact figure, possesses a pair of appropriately beetling brows sheltering an extremely shrewd gaze and sports an unabashedly splendid set of bugger’s grips. Standing in the doorway
Beauty is generally considered old-fashioned by the young and not-so-young bloods of contemporary culture, so an exhibition appealing unashamedly to the aesthetically refined will not seduce the practitioners of sensationalism, bad taste and ever more self-indulgent and feeble art. But it will appeal to a public fed up with the empty, egomaniacal posturings of today’s
As newspapers are consulted increasingly on screen, and newsprint is all set to become a thing of the past, artists are turning their attention to this endangered medium. The Irish Expressionist painter Michael Kane (born 1935) has produced a provocative series of 100 paintings in ink, acrylic paint and collage, done on newsprint magazine pages
Foundling Voices at the Foundling Museum in London’s Bloomsbury (until 30 October) is the fruit of an oral history project that recorded the memories of 74 men and women (the youngest is now 68, the oldest 98) born to unmarried mothers who were placed as babies in the care of the Foundling Hospital Schools in
Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits alone should have secured him a place in history as a major Renaissance painter. Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits alone should have secured him a place in history as a major Renaissance painter. Yet, ironically, while his works continued to be admired, his name was all but forgotten. This paradoxical state of affairs came
In 1879, two young brothers moved into a new fifth-floor apartment at no. 31 Boulevard Haussmann, overlooking the Opéra. Flush with inheritances from their father’s army bunk business, Gustave Caillebotte, 31, and his brother Martial, 26, were exactly the sort of children of the Second Empire for whom these new Parisian mansion blocks had been
From across Margate Bay, the prickly silhouette of the new Turner Contemporary art gallery points towards the sea like prows of departing cruise liners. Here at last is the inspired intervention in economy and townscape to encourage resurgence in the south-east of England as has been catalysed by Tate St Ives in the south-west. Margate
Joan Miró (1893–1983) was a great imaginative artist and a pure painter of genius. Joan Miró (1893–1983) was a great imaginative artist and a pure painter of genius. He produced a huge body of work over a long life, and this excellent selection of it transforms the uninspiring galleries at Tate Modern, which have rarely
There were two John Tradescants, father and son, operating in the 17th century as travellers and gardeners from a base in south London. Their family tomb is at the heart of the garden surrounding the Garden Museum in the former church of St Mary-at-Lambeth in Lambeth Palace Road, a garden designed as a Tradescant memorial
At the beginning of Richard Ingrams’s book on John Piper (1903–92), he quotes the artist as saying: ‘The basic and unexplainable thing about my paintings is a feeling for places. At the beginning of Richard Ingrams’s book on John Piper (1903–92), he quotes the artist as saying: ‘The basic and unexplainable thing about my paintings
