Reviews

Lucy McKenzie gets to grips with reality

In a major new exhibition, the artist has created a world in miniature, full of panoramic views, trompe l’oeil murals and imitations of everyday life

3 Dec 2024

Mark Bradford keeps on testing the limits of painting

In a show at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the American artist keeps pushing at the boundaries of abstract art

29 Nov 2024

The ghoulish genius of James Ensor

The painter is usually regarded as an eccentric one-off, but an anniversary season in Antwerp places him firmly among the European avant-garde

28 Nov 2024

The Maori artist remapping New Zealand’s landscape

Cora-Allan revives traditional techniques and materials in her thoughtful meditations on the myths and history of her home country

27 Nov 2024

When London had a much richer interior life

A new book by Steven Brindle lovingly catalogues the lavish interiors that could once be found in London’s grandest houses but are now lost

27 Nov 2024

What the shape of things to come once looked like

Glenn Adamson’s new book explores how predictions about the future have always spoken volumes about the present

25 Nov 2024

The art of crossing continents – ‘Silk Roads’ at the British Museum, reviewed

An exhibition about the civilisations that could be found along the trade route connects cultures at every turn, writes Sameer Rahim

25 Nov 2024

The animal instincts of Jacopo Bassano

In his striking pastoral and biblical scenes, the 16th-century Venetian painter turned beasts into sensitive protagonists

25 Nov 2024

Pierre Bonnard’s world of interiors

The painter’s vibrant domestic scenes are full of revealing details – and so is Isabelle Cahn’s weighty new biography of the painter

25 Nov 2024

Cutting and pasting through the ages

A new history of collage around the world is at its best when revaluing the work of women, writes Samuel Reilly

25 Nov 2024

Robert Frank’s doom-laden images of America

The photographer’s first and most famous book quickly became a classic, but he never lost his determination to capture modern life in the United States

25 Nov 2024

The intensely felt art of Elisabeth Frink

From her early associations with the ‘Geometry of Fear’ school of sculpture, Frink went on to evoke any number of strong emotions

19 Nov 2024

Style and substance – in defence of trompe l’oeil

The genre has often been seen as shallow, but the best examples display philosophical depth as well as technical flair

18 Nov 2024

Street cred – Peter Doig gets urban at Gagosian

The painter has curated a show of street scenes, by the likes of Balthus and Bacon, which suggests that the city is an isolated place

17 Nov 2024

The art nouveau offshoot that transformed Munich

Young artists and designers turned the city into a hive of creativity in the late 19th century – and their spirit can still be felt today

16 Nov 2024

The Catholic nun who believed in protest art

A show of photographs and Pop art-inspired prints by Corita Kent displays the artist’s fun side but plays down her political fervour

13 Nov 2024

In Mati Diop’s ‘Dahomey’, restitution is given a supernatural slant

A prize-winning documentary about France’s return of 26 looted objects from Benin is a haunting tale

8 Nov 2024

The arresting satire of Sigmar Polke

The artist’s depictions of life in West Germany after the war are playful in form but deeply sarcastic under the surface

8 Nov 2024

Close encounters of the miniature kind

Photography largely wiped out the trend for miniatures, but the genre still says much about how we relate to images today

7 Nov 2024

When London’s sleepy art trade was jolted wide awake

An insider account by a former head of Sotheby’s in the UK recounts how London’s post-war art market took off in the 1950s and has kept on reinventing itself

4 Nov 2024

The textile artists who cut a rug in Cumbria

The making of rag rugs has never been considered high art, but an exhibition in Middlesborough shows just how intricate and inventive they can be

1 Nov 2024

‘If Jeff Koons directed an ad for Nescafé Gold Blend’ – Rivals, reviewed

From explosions of chintz to thrusting postmodern architecture, the sets for Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster leave us in no doubt we’re watching a 1980s period drama

28 Oct 2024

The dreams of the Surrealists have become the stuff of our reality

The ideas and images of the artists who unleashed their unconscious on the world a century ago are now part of the fabric of everyday life

28 Oct 2024

Why Mies van der Rohe’s designs are here to stay

The architect’s pioneering modernist buildings have outlasted critics and changing trends, as a monumental new biography makes clear

28 Oct 2024