Exhibitions
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…
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…
Shades of Gray
The Anglo-Irish designer Eileen Gray keeps on being rediscovered but she remains a puzzle. The nub of the Gray ‘problem’,…
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’,…
Free spirits
‘Gypsies seem to have been born into the world for the sole purpose of being thieves,’ Cervantes begins his story…
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…
Wandering eye
‘When Matisse dies,’ declared Picasso, ‘Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.’ Wandering around…
Foundling Hospital tokens
‘Dear Sir, I am the unfortunate woman that lies under sentens of Death in Newgatt…’ So begins a letter of…
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…
The new seekers
Over the past year or so, art world insiders have queued up to denounce the current state of the contemporary…
Finding beauty in junk
Although Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) did not invent the technique or theory of collage, he was one of the greatest practitioners…
Bring in the lawyers
When collectors want to purchase an expensive work of art, they contact their lawyers to write up a contract with…
Seraphic misfit
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Estorick Collection and it is fitting that Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964), one of…
Line man
One of the pleasures of the critic’s life is to review exhibitions of work by artists who have been forgotten…
Nexus of opposites
Francesco Clemente (born Naples 1952) began his rise to prominence in this country with two exhibitions at the Royal Academy…
Particularity of place
John Sell Cotman (1782–1842) is a key figure in the great tradition of English watercolour painting. A prominent member of…
Imperialist ambitions
In 1997, the Russian Academy of Sciences gave the names Hermitage 4758 and Piotrovsky 4869 to two small planets discovered…
Friends reunited
Christopher Wood (1901–30), billed as the great white hope of British Modernism, who perished by his own hand before his…
Keeping the faith
In 1929 the founder of Italian Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, reported from Milan that, after a wartime setback, the movement…
Concealed treasures
The Holburne Museum of Bath is a delight. Its collections were formed by Sir William Holburne (1793–1874), a naval officer…
Dressed to impress
Does the costume make the man or the man the costume? Well, a little bit of both if the Hollywood…
Unexpected structures
There are only eight single paintings in the current show of early work by Gillian Ayres (born 1930) — eight…
Missing links
The primary experience of looking at painting is the crucial encounter between a painted surface and the human eye. Nothing…
Neglected master
Every so often, about once a decade, the work of Mark Gertler (1891–1939) is rediscovered and exhibited. I remember seeing…
Bizarre visions
If you want to see how myths arise from misunderstandings, the Tower of Babel provides a textbook example. In ancient…
