What exactly are the ‘secrets of the royal bedchamber’? That the actual bed was seldom if ever slept in let alone used for romping sex (the latter took place in private bedchambers, often barred off by an ingenious system of locks). But the royal bedchamber was, as the organisers of this exhibition state, ‘the equivalent
As more time elapses since the regrettable fracas over Kitaj’s 1994 Tate exhibition and his tragic suicide in 2007, he comes more and more into his own as a great but still underrated artist. When I last wrote about him in this column, back in April, I had not yet seen the portion of his
Eduardo Chillida (1924–2002) is one of the greatest of modern sculptors yet curiously little known in this country. The last major show in London was at the Hayward Gallery in 1990, where I first encountered his work in real depth. Before that, he had only exhibited once in the UK, a solo show at the
By all accounts, Rory McEwen (1932–82) was a remarkable man, hugely talented in several different disciplines (artist, musician, writer) and very much loved by his friends. Grey Gowrie calls him ‘a spectacular human being’ and writes: ‘Even now, 30 years after his death, he lights up the mind of everyone who knew him.’ Renowned as
In the wake of the Roy Lichtenstein blockbuster at Tate Modern comes Patrick Caulfield at Tate Britain, and what a contrast! Where Lichtenstein looks increasingly like a one-trick pony, an assessment driven home by the excessively large show, Caulfield emerges as fresh, witty and visually inventive. Undoubtedly this impression is fostered by the size of
It is nothing short of a miracle that this aptly titled exhibition could be shoehorned into just two rooms at the Royal Academy, such was the range of the irrepressible Hugh Casson’s work and influence during his lifetime. Architect, artist, designer and writer, he was a fireball of energy and a fount of ideas. He
The Royal Academy’s biggest annual prize is the Charles Wollaston Award, worth £25,000, for the most distinguished work in the Summer Exhibition, this year won by the Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui (born 1944). Although his preferred media are clay and wood, El Anatsui has taken to making installations from found materials woven together like cloth,
Paint is but coloured mud, pace scientists and conservators, and it can be said that the human animal comes from mud and goes back to it. Thus are the activities of painting and being human linked at a fundamental level, which can be raised by consciousness to impressive heights. As the philosopher T.E. Hulme wrote,
The centenary celebrations for William Scott (1913–89) are well under way, and the retrospective of his work that started in January at Tate St Ives is currently in Wakefield. There are more works in its latest incarnation and more archive material, and the installation looks very impressive in The Hepworth’s riverside galleries. Scott has not
Forgive my ignorance, ladies and gentlemen, but I must confess that I had never heard of Saloua Raouda Choucair before the advance publicity of the Tate’s exhibition. She’s not in the Yale Dictionary of Art & Artists (always a useful reference book, but by no means infallible) and I don’t believe I’d ever seen her
‘When Titian paints eyes,’ observed Eugène Delacroix, who spent a lifetime admiring, studying and copying the Venetian artist, ‘they are lit with the fire of life.’ The truth of Delacroix’s aphorism is on striking display in the magnificent exhibition of Titian’s paintings at the Scuderie of the Quirinale Palace in Rome. The exhibition does not
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 the place in an atlas today, as the entire town, with its warren of streets, railways, parks, public buildings and monuments to local luminaries, was
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 to Beckmann sounds like a harmless survey of German art. But it is stranger than that, less a measured look at German painting and more
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 so because they no longer want them. Next month, on 5 June, Sotheby’s New York is offering some 25 classical carpets on behalf of the
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. There was no one who could cut and shape sheet aluminium and suspend it from wire with quite the same wit, economy and shape invention.
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 Renaissance sculpture exhibition when there’s huge amounts of the stuff on show in the city’s museums any day of the year? It’s true that some
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 advertising, to reveal to a largely unsuspecting public the richness of vernacular art in Britain. The original exhibition was evidently an Aladdin’s cave of objects,
‘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, one was too casual and one ‘they just didn’t like it’. The commission finally was given to a different artist. Don’t feel too sorry for
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 the world. Landscape is a great solace, and particularly refreshing for the tired urban spirit, but we want more than holiday snaps of foreign places
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: for years he was an admired, if somewhat controversial, presence, but then came his great retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1994. A large proportion
