John McEwen 
Our most exotic bird
The Black Grouse (Merlin Unwin, £20) is Patrick Lurie’s first book and the first ever on the the subject. Lurie is a freelance journalist but his mission is to save… Read more
How do birds fly south?
Did you know the external ‘shell’ of the ear is the pinna? That a woman’s oestrogen level alters the way she hears the male voice, making it richer, and thus… Read more
Bearing the brunt
Ostensibly this small book is a jolly and true story (illustrated with some charming black-and-white snapshots) about the military experiences of Wojtek (pronounced Voycheck), the bear who, bought as a… Read more
Liberating Visions
Victor Willing (1928–88) is perhaps the least classifiable of the brilliant early-1950s Slade generation, which includes his wife Paula Rego. Victor Willing (1928–88) is perhaps the least classifiable of the… Read more
Scottish clash
Highlands and Islands: Paintings and Poems Fleming Collection, 13 Berkeley Street, W1, until 5 June Pictures are usually exhibited with closed-shop segregation from the other arts, so it is a… Read more
A towering talent
Ian Massey is a writer, artist and lecturer and this is his first book. There have been two previous books on Procktor: a ghosted autobiography and a slim volume to… Read more
Flower power
Mrs Delaney (1700-88) is an inspiring example for old age; also a reproach to those who think ‘upper class’ a term of abuse and that women have only recently had… Read more
Romantic approaches
Spectator readers will know that Andrew Lambirth is a romantic, a force for the literary and poetic approach to art criticism, so he is an admirably empathetic guide to Hoyland:… Read more
The Oaks of Cheyithorne Barton
Michael Heathcoat Amory inherited Chevithorne Barton in Devon from his grandmother. She had experienced the unimaginable loss of her husband in the First War and their three sons in the… Read more
The sweetness pictures can add to life
This is the tribute of a child to a parent, especially commendable when the very concept of fatherhood is threatened; rarer still, the co-authors are themselves artists in their separate… Read more
Poles apart
With more Poles in Britain than at any time since the second world war, when the 17,000 remnant of the Polish army arrived after the fall of France, this book… Read more
Flights of fancy
Did you know that the first person to cage a budgerigar was John Gould, the 19th-century English artist/naturalist? Or that the word ‘penguin’ is derived from the Welsh words ‘pen’… Read more
Blast from the past
Percy Wyndham Lewis 1882–1957, Design Centre, Rugby School, until 8 December In the 1915 Vorticist Manifesto, published in the movement’s magazine Blast, Wyndham Lewis (he dropped Percy) wrote: Lewis is… Read more
Life and conflict
Ever since he burst on the scene in the 1960s Michael Sandle RA has been the rogue elephant of British art. At Ludlow Castle, a perfect venue for work whose… Read more
Treasures of the South Seas
The enlarged, updated and now undivided Sainsbury Centre has reopened with the most comprehensive selection of Polynesian art ever assembled; and yet, shamefully, it has received not a single review.… Read more
The Knight’s noble rescue
This handsome and scholarly book is a catalogue of a selection of pictures of Ireland, all, remarkably, collected over the past 30 years by Desmond Fitzgerald, 29th Knight of Glin,… Read more
Cheeps, tweets and warbles
In his old age John Ruskin lamented, ‘I have made a great mistake. I have wasted my life with mineralogy, which has led to nothing. Had I devoted myself to… Read more
Haunting melancholy
As a former winner of Britain’s most prestigious award for painters, the John Moores prize (other winners include Hamilton, Hilton, Hockney, Hoyland), a new show by Andrzej Jackowski should not… Read more
Visual agility
It is difficult to place oneself in the position of the pioneers of graphic art shown at the Estorick Collection: their extraordinary leaps of the imagination have become the standard… Read more
A hunter’s eye for nature
For pure delight you must away to Northampton and see this admirable celebration of the centenary of Denys Watkins-Pitchford (1905–90) — amazingly, the first ever solo show of his pictures.… Read more
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