Exhibitions
Exhibition review: Julian Trevelyan: Picture Language
Between 1917 and 1923, Julian Trevelyan produced a map and an illustrated guide to Hurtenham, an industrial town on the Tees between Stockton and Darlington. You’ll search in vain for… Read more
Exhibition review: German thought and painting from Friedrich to Beckmann at the Louvre
Curated by the Louvre as a tribute to mark the 50th anniversary of the Franco–German co-operation treaty signed in January 1963, De l’Allemagne 1800–1939: German thought and painting from Friedrich… Read more
![Sickle-Leaf-Carpet]](http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sickle-Leaf-Carpet-140x91.jpg)
When museums sell the family silver — well, carpets
It is a desperate state of affairs when museums and art galleries sell outstanding works of art in order to raise funds. It is even worse, perhaps, when they do… Read more
Alexander Calder, Eilis O’Connell, Mary Newcomb
Alexander Calder (1898–1976) needs no introduction. The master of the mobile — that poignant hanging arrangement of moving elements — he also invented the stabile (stationary) and the standing mobile.… Read more
Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence, 1400–1460
Sixty per cent of the best Renaissance art is said to be in Italy, and half of that is in Florence. So why bother going to Florence for a particular… Read more
Cabinet of curiosities
In 1951, the artist and writer Barbara Jones (1912–78) organised an exhibition called Black Eyes and Lemonade at the Whitechapel Gallery celebrating the popular arts of toys, festivities, souvenirs and… Read more
Why on earth paint portraits in the age of photography?
‘Everybody faces rejection,’ the portrait artist Aaron Shikler said. He should know, having had three official White House portraits of former President Ronald Reagan rejected — one was too large,… Read more
Exhibition review: Looking at the View, Tate Britain
Most of us like to look at a view, though not all are fortunate enough to live with one, in which case art can offer an alternative, a window on… Read more
Exhibitions: R.B. Kitaj: Obsessions The Art of Identity
Nowadays, R.B. Kitaj (1932–2007) tends to be ignored by the critics in this country — like a bad smell in the corner of the room. It was not always thus:… Read more
Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum
The Reading Room is currently packed with Roman remains and with visitors attempting (or pretending) to look at them. The latest blockbuster at the BM (sponsored by Goldman Sachs) looks… Read more
George Bellows; Sydney Lee RA
The American artist George Bellows (1882–1925) is best known for his boxing paintings, but as this surprising exhibition reveals, that was only the half of it. We don’t really know… Read more
The Angel of the Odd: an exhibition that ends with a satisfying shiver
To some extent, all Romanticism has its origins in darkness, coming in the wake of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that introduced fear into the age of reason. ‘Reason’s Sleep Produces… Read more
Shades of Gray
The Anglo-Irish designer Eileen Gray keeps on being rediscovered but she remains a puzzle. The nub of the Gray ‘problem’, which her last large retrospective at the Design Museum in… Read more
Barocci exhibition review: is he better unfinished?
The press release blithely informs us that Federico Barocci (1535–1612) is ‘beloved by artists and art historians throughout the ages’, but I must beg to differ. Not by me, nor… Read more
Free spirits
‘Gypsies seem to have been born into the world for the sole purpose of being thieves,’ Cervantes begins his story of The Little Gypsy Girl. ‘They are born of thieving… Read more
Peter Archer — Notes from an Inland Sea
Peter Archer used to paint landscapes on the Cornish side of the Tamar river. Their most notable features were lovingly observed trees and the tall chimneys of abandoned tin mines.… Read more
Wandering eye
‘When Matisse dies,’ declared Picasso, ‘Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.’ Wandering around this splendid show you can see exactly what he meant.… Read more
Foundling Hospital tokens
‘Dear Sir, I am the unfortunate woman that lies under sentens of Death in Newgatt…’ So begins a letter of 1757 addressed to the powers that be at the Foundling… Read more
In the thick of it
Man Ray, born Michael Emmanuel Radnitzky (1890–1976) in Philadelphia, was a maker of images par excellence. He made sculptures, paintings and photographs, but the medium was always secondary to the… Read more
The new seekers
Over the past year or so, art world insiders have queued up to denounce the current state of the contemporary art world. Charles Saatchi started the ball rolling with a… Read more
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