‘I want to see Venice, and the Alps, and Parmesan cheeses.’ So wrote Lord Byron in 1814, some two years before he settled — if that is the word — in the lagoon city. Even after his arrival in the winter of 1816, Venice retained its fantastical allure: he identified with its decay (which he
With auction houses in the news following record-breaking sales, I sat down with Ralph Taylor, Global Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Bonhams, to discuss how the contemporary art market is shaping up for 2018. Are auction houses getting too close to emerging artists and damaging their careers through speculative sales? How difficult is
Some say Genoa takes its name from Janus, the two-faced god of time and doorways. Perhaps. What’s certain is the city has two aspects: the vast industrial port, its docks the bared teeth of the Italian Riviera; and, in the ruched strip of land between the Ligurian Sea and the hills, a bewildering network of
People can be mightily protective of their Romantic poets. When I worked at the Keats Shelley House, overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome, one of my colleagues developed a callus on her hand where the daily task of locking the museum door — emphatically — caused the key to abrade her skin. And when I
The Apollo magazine podcast, produced in association with The Spectator’s Culture House, takes a monthly look at international art and museum news. In the July/August edition, Thomas Marks is joined by Diane Lees, director-general of the Imperial War Museums, and writer and curator David Boyd Haycock to discuss the reopening of IWM London and the role of
