Reviews

Travel agency – ‘Dürer’s Journeys’ at the National Gallery, reviewed

To trail the artist through Europe, as this lively exhibition does, is to realise that his art relied on movement

11 Feb 2022
Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent and Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington star in ‘The Duke’, directed by Roger Michell.

The man who made off with a Goya – ‘The Duke’, reviewed

Roger Michell’s last film tells the unlikely story of how the Duke of Wellington’s portrait was stolen from the National Gallery – and found in a train station four years later

11 Feb 2022
Saint Michael Smiting the Devi(1692), Luisa Roldán. Monastery of El Escorial, Madrid.l

Courting success – the colourful career of Luisa Roldán

The artist’s independence of mind and spectacular skill led to her becoming the first female sculptor to the Spanish king

28 Jan 2022
From ‘Taming the Garden’ (dir. Salomé Jashi).

The Georgian billionaire who is digging up the nation’s most majestic trees

Salomé Jashi’s film ‘Taming the Garden’ documents how a tree-hogging former prime minister is pillaging the landscape to create a private paradise

26 Jan 2022
Isamu Noguchi with study for Luminous Plastic Sculpture, 1943

Light years ahead – ‘Isamu Noguchi’ at the Barbican, reviewed

The familiarity of the designer’s most famous products has long obscured his more utopian side

21 Jan 2022
Due Dormienti (1966), Domenico Gnoli. Private collection.

The peculiar perfectionism of Domenico Gnoli

In the six years before his tragically early death, the Italian artist zoomed in on the details of the everyday – to supremely unsettling effect

14 Jan 2022
Pyxis (c. 950–975), Córdoba. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

When it came to art, the religions of medieval Spain had a lot in common

Christianity, Judaism and Islam shared a visual language on the Iberian peninsula – but it was a fragile balance at the best of times

22 Dec 2021
Apsley Street, Stockport (1964), Alan Lowndes

It’s time for Alan Lowndes to emerge from L.S. Lowry’s shadow

When it came to painting the industrial north-west, Stockport-born Alan Lowndes could hold his own

16 Dec 2021
Linda Evangelista wearing a ‘Watteau’ evening gown in Vivienne Westwood’s 1996 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection, shown in Paris, October 1995.

Vivienne Westwood’s rococo approach to fashion

The designer’s favourite museum is the Wallace Collection, so it’s no wonder her clothes are full of flourishes from Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard

14 Dec 2021
(1920), Nicolai Aluf. Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin

True to form – Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s touching faith in geometry

In the course of her adventures in abstraction, the artist seemed determined to test herself in every available medium

14 Dec 2021
The Hall of Signs in the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris.

The new Musée Carnavalet brings the history of Paris bang up to date

The museum devoted to the history of the Paris is itself an important part of that history – so it’s a relief that so many of its quirks remain

13 Dec 2021
The Rolling Stones on stage at Longleat House in Wiltshire on 2 August 1964.

Altered estates – the English country houses that boomed in the post-war period

Adrian Tinniswood’s new book focuses on the aristocrats and rock stars who secured the futures of the houses they owned – or moved into

26 Nov 2021
Gold alloy and shell ear plates (800–550 BC), Peru.

From the Andes to the Amazon, the cultures of Peru have produced astonishing work

The British Museum presents the mysteries and marvels of the Andean civilisations predating modern Peru

25 Nov 2021
Molly Ringwald in ‘Office Killer‘ (1997), directed by Cindy Sherman.

Cindy Sherman confirms that working from home can be murder

In what now seems like a warning from history, the artist’s only feature film is about a magazine editor who is forced to work at home

25 Nov 2021
Detail from Giotto's John the Evangelist fresco at the Peruzzi Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence

The restorers who took a creative approach to Renaissance paintings

A new study assesses 19th-century interventions on paintings by Giotto and other masters, and their impact on art history

25 Nov 2021

The greatness of Constable’s lateness

In the decade before his death, John Constable developed a freer hand to follow new visions – to astonishing effect

22 Nov 2021
The Painter and his Pug

When it came to art, Hogarth had no real beef with Europe

William Hogarth liked to present himself as a bluff Englishman, but the truth was a touch more complicated

18 Nov 2021
Isaac Abrahamsz Massa (1626; detail), Frans Hals. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Ruff and ready – how Frans Hals made his portraits crackle with life

The Dutch painter already knew the majority of the sitters in his lively portraits of merchants and dignitaries – and it shows

15 Nov 2021
From Muddy Dance (2021) by Erik Kessels, published by RVB Books.

Up in the air – the photographs that defy the laws of gravity

What goes up inevitably must come down – but for a fleeting moment some photographers have tried to suggest otherwise

6 Nov 2021
Chromatic (1932) Gluck. Private collection. Photo: Bridgeman Images

The messy reality of immaculate still lives

Rebecca Birrell’s absorbing book asks us to look beneath the surface of work by women artists – but perhaps a rose sometimes really is just a rose?

5 Nov 2021
The Conversion of Mary Magdalene (c. 1661–62), Guido Cagnacci. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Judging by his Old Masters, Norton Simon had a better eye than J. Paul Getty

Nicholas Penny’s survey of 17th- and 18th-century Italian paintings in the Norton Simon Museum reveals the astute figure behind the collections

2 Nov 2021
The sculptor Beverly Pepper (1922–2020).

Material differences – the abstract women sculptors with utterly distinct approaches

The artists featured in this exhibition didn’t share the same outlook or methods, but their variousness is part of the point

29 Oct 2021
After a fashion – Mary Quant on the Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, in October 1960. Photo: Cyril Maitland/Mirrorpix/Getty Images

How Mary Quant defined the look of Swinging London

Sadie Frost’s documentary about the designer is hardly original, but then Quant didn’t actually invent the miniskirt – and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of her genius

27 Oct 2021
Kilkeel Shipyard (1943), Nevill Johnson.

A century of art from Northern Ireland inevitably paints a complex picture

An exhibition in Belfast marking 100 years of the country treads rather carefully, for understandable reasons

26 Oct 2021