The Imperial War Museum has reopened after a major refit and looks pretty dapper, even though it was overrun by hordes when I visited (it was still the school holidays). There’s a new and effective restaurant, inevitably, but also a new sense of spaciousness. I am not concerned here with weapons of mass destruction, merely
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) claimed that nothing has really happened until it has been recorded, so this new exhibition at the NPG devoted to her life can only now be said to have happened — for here I am recording it. Of course it is a truism that an exhibition only exists while it is on.
Titles can be misleading, and in case you have visions of microwave ovens running amok or washing machines crunching up the parquet, be reassured — or disappointed. Disobedient Objects, the new free display in the V&A’s Porter Gallery, is about objects as tools of social change. It’s a highly politicised exhibition and contains a great
Futurism, with its populist mix of explosive rhetoric (burn all the museums!) and resolutely urban experience and emphasis on speed, was a force to be reckoned with (at least in Italy) for longer than one might imagine. It was launched in Paris in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, poet and performer, a superb propagandist for
A day trip to the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne is a summer pleasure, and two concurrent shows are proving a considerable draw, with their focus on design and applied art. Designing the Everyday is in some ways just an excuse to get out all the best Ravilious china and show it with his working
John Northcote Nash (1893–1977) was the younger brother of Paul Nash (1889–1946), and has been long overshadowed by Paul, though they started their careers on a relatively even footing. The crucible of WW1 changed them: afterwards Paul became an art-world figure, cultivating possible patrons, quietly forceful and ambitious, deeply involved in the theory and practice
British folk art has been shamefully neglected in the land of its origin, as if the popular handiwork of past generations is an embarrassment to our cultural gurus and the kind of supposedly hip commentators who sneer at morris dancing. Last May I reviewed the archive display at the Whitechapel Gallery of Black Eyes and
Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) is one of the founding fathers of Modernism, and as such entirely deserves the in-depth treatment with which this massive new Tate show honours him. But it should be recognised from the start that this is a difficult exhibition, making serious intellectual and emotional demands on visitors, as art enters the realm
In an age when photographs have swollen out of all proportion to their significance, and are mounted on wall-sized light boxes the better to show off their high-resolution colour, it’s a relief to see an exhibition of small photographic prints in good old black and white. Dennis Hopper (1936–2010) is best known as an actor
These days, as the sparrows and starlings so common in my youth are growing scarce, there’s less need for a rarity like the osprey or butcher bird (the red-backed shrike) to raise awareness of the plight of birds, and with Radio 4’s Tweet of the Day you might say that birds are in (or on)
As the boundary between auction house and art dealer blurs yet further, with auctioneers acting increasingly by private treaty as well as taking over commercial galleries, and as West End gallery space becomes ever more expensive, alternative exhibiting venues are being sought with growing urgency. One solution is to move further into corporate territory, and
For decades I’ve been aware of the work of Keith Grant (born 1930), but it is only in recent years that I have come to know it at all well. During that time both the style and the subject of his paintings have undergone a series of remarkable revolutions, as he determined not to rest
Tragically, Ian Welsh (1944–2014) did not live to see this exhibition of his latest work. Diagnosed with terminal cancer on the eve of his 70th birthday, he struggled to finish the two large paintings in his last series of works, entitled ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. He found it increasingly difficult to stand to paint, but he worked,
One of the great traditions of the RA’s Summer Exhibition has always been that each work submitted was seen in person by the Hanging Committee, passed in front of their keen or bemused gaze by a succession of porters. Of course this method had its drawbacks: judges could miss something in a state of postprandial
Earlier this year, I sat down and watched Kenneth Clark’s groundbreaking TV series Civilisation. I vaguely remember when it was first screened in 1969, but was too young to appreciate it properly. This time around it made splendid Sunday afternoon viewing: Clark’s distinctive blend of authority and humour, his ability to convey information and enthusiasm
Lynn Chadwick was born 100 years ago in London, and died in 2003 at his Gloucestershire home, Lypiatt Park, where he is buried in the Pinetum. He was one of the great names of 20th-century sculpture, not just in England but recognised and celebrated internationally, too. He first came to prominence in the 1950s, and
Josef Albers (1888–1976) is best known for his long engagement with the square, which he painted in exquisite variation more than a thousand times. A German–American painter, he trained in Berlin and Munich before enrolling at the Bauhaus (the leading modernist art and design school) in 1920. He was a student there for three years
The phrase ‘Constable Country’ summons up a quintessentially English landscape: river and meadows, open vistas bordered by trees, the greens and golds of cultivated acres, with the wide (and often blustery) skies of East Anglia over all. John Constable (1776–1837) is one of our greatest artists and certainly one of the most popular. His vision
Jankel Adler (1895–1949), a Polish Jew who arrived in Glasgow in 1941, was invalided out of the Polish army, and moved to London two years later. A distinguished artist in his own right, he turns out to have been a hidden presence on the English art scene, a secret influence on indigenous artists. He is
This exhibition examines a loosely knit community of artists and their interaction over a decade at the beginning of the last century. It is centred around the marriage of Ben and Winifred Nicholson (which began to split up in 1931), involves their crucial joint-friendship with Christopher Wood and a fruitful exhibiting relationship with William Staite
