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Acquisitions of the Month: August 2023
The Green Vault in Dresden has received a baroque chess set for its 300th birthday, plus the rest of the most important items to enter public collections
Who do museums want to appeal to?
When institutions try to offer something to everyone do they risk spreading themselves too thin?
Can painting ever bear the weight of grief?
Gwen John and the contemporary artist Matthew Krishanu found comfort in a shared composition
The drinks are on Theaster Gates at LUMA Arles
A convivial collaboration between the American artist and a saké brewery is refreshing stuff
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs gets more modern
Under its new director Christine Macel, the historic museum full of masterpieces of French design is entering a brand new era
The invention of Frenchness
The national museum of immigration has a new mission – but it’s still housed in a building haunted by France’s colonial ghosts
The Norman conquest of the European imagination
It’s hard to say who, exactly, the Normans were – but even harder to make them out as a model migrants and proto-Europeans as a string of recent exhibitions has tried to do
Do children need museums of their own?
The reinvention of the Museum of Childhood as Young V&A has been a great success. Should more institutions follow its example and become younger at heart?
Dessert trolleys are on the move again, with delightful results
An old-fashioned way of bringing in cakes and custards is beginning to feel rather modern again
The eye-popping posters that promoted Egyptian films
The Egyptian film industry came to dominate the Arab world – and poster makers did much to secure its hold on the popular imagination
The return of the retro ice-cream van
The vintage trucks in London’s parks provide soft serve with an outsize dollop of nostalgia – and do it in style
Gertrude Jekyll and the making of Munstead Wood
The first garden created by the designer for a house by Edwin Lutyens has been bought by the National Trust – preserving a vital piece of history
The Scottish artist who could paint up a storm
From the September 2023 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here. I first encountered William McTaggart’s The Storm (1890) when…
Restoring the largest tapestries in England has been a massive success
It has taken the National Trust 24 years to restore the Gideon Tapestries at Hardwick Hall to their former glory
How Barbie’s Dreamhouse turned into a design nightmare
Before the gal who has everything got into pink, her ideal home was a shrine to midcentury modern living
Acquisitions of the Month: July 2023
The only surviving portrait from Henry Raeburn’s trip to Italy and an 18th-century book about cricket are among the most remarkable works to enter public collections
How X. Marcel Boulestin catered to the masses
The restaurateur and writer won over both the smart set and the middle classes – and was a hero to Elizabeth David
Drinking in style with the ancient Greeks and Persians
The ancient Greeks were quick to adopt the decadent drinking culture of their Persian enemies
Folly mixture – the Wedding Cake at Waddesdon
A close attention to architectural history is the icing on the cake for a new pavilion cooked up by Joana Vasconcelos for Waddesdon Manor
A sculpture given to Captain Cook returns to Tahiti
The figures brought over in 1771 are the first documented works of Oceanic art – and now on display where they were made
Inside a very forward-looking home in Rome
At Casa Balla, Futurism was definitely a family affair for Giacomo Balla and his daughters Lucia and Elice
The unwavering art of Ellsworth Kelly
On the centenary of the artist’s birth, it is easier to see that beneath the impersonal surfaces his work is teeming with life
Acquisitions of the Month: June 2023
A rare 17th-century portrait of a Black woman and a white woman and an illustrated Armenian manuscript are among this month’s highlights
Glasgow’s cuts will hamper its museums for years to come
The axeing of 37 museum posts will force overstretched employees to work harder and make institutions shelve their grander plans
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