Reviews

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, Mary Cassatt

How Mary Cassatt created a school of her own

The American Impressionist’s singular body of work is as hard to classify as ever

7 May 2018
Installation view of a work by John Russell, part of 'Cellular World' at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow International Festival 2018, photo: © Alan Dimmick

Glasgow International plays tricks on the city

Scotland’s most ambitious biennial sets out to disorient – and largely succeeds

4 May 2018
La Vachalcade, Fernand Pelez

Picturing poverty in the 19th century

In her final book Linda Nochlin makes a case for painting that looks poverty in the eye

27 Apr 2018
'Water', Charles Sheeler

The making of modern America

Masterpieces of American modernism cross the pond for the very first time

27 Apr 2018
She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene, Danh Vo

The weight of history in Danh Vo’s readymades

Vo’s conceptual work serves as a reminder of the personal and political meanings carried by the objects around us

26 Apr 2018

How the body became political for the women of Latin American art

In the turbulent decades of the 1960s to ’80s, female artists found creative ways to resist and transform the status quo

26 Apr 2018
The Paston Treasure (c. 1663), unknown artist (Dutch School). Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, UK.

The mystery of The Paston Treasure painting

Who was the artist commissioned to record the Paston family’s collection – and what was the purpose of the painting?

20 Apr 2018

Solving the mystery of the Silver Caesars

A mysterious set of Renaissance silverware has been reunited for the first time in centuries

17 Apr 2018
Landscape (1943), Roberto Burle Marx, Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries

The Brazilian paintings that made a splash in wartime Britain

The recreation of an exhibition of Brazilian modernism during the Second World War is a remarkable feat

13 Apr 2018
Installation view of ‘Richard Serra: Rifts’ at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, 2018.

On reading the Rifts of Richard Serra

The artist’s monumental drawings challenge the viewer to discover unexpected details in their pitch-black surfaces

11 Apr 2018
Installation view of ‘Post Zang Tumb Tuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918–1943’ at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2018.

Displays of power in Italian art under Fascism

The relationship between Italian art and politics reconsidered through restaged exhibitions from the Fascist era

9 Apr 2018

Light exposure

Kate Flint’s history of flash photography highlights the uses of a technology many practitioners have mixed feelings about

3 Apr 2018
Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1490/95), Sandro Botticelli.

Florentine painting in full colour

This catalogue of Florentine works in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich sets a new standard

2 Apr 2018
Almond Blossom, (1890), Vincent Van Gogh, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

How Van Gogh imagined Japan

The artist’s collection of Japanese prints gave him a new way of seeing the world

30 Mar 2018
The Titanic in dry dock

A first-class voyage through the golden age of ocean liners

Luxury, glamour and romance abound in the V&A’s celebration of the heyday of sea travel

27 Mar 2018
Prisoner Pair (2008), Tacita Dean.

Tacita Dean’s meditations on a medium

Two shows in London reaffirm the artist’s intense dedication to film and the moving image

24 Mar 2018
‘Karla Black’, installation view at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2018.

The sculptures that dare to mean nothing at all

Karla Black’s playful new works subtly challenge the viewer to make sense of them

23 Mar 2018
'Mike Nelson: Lionheart', installation view, The New Art Gallery Walsall, 2018.

Mike Nelson sets up camp in Walsall

At the New Art Gallery the artist remakes an old installation exploring migration and belonging in Europe

22 Mar 2018
Le parfum de l'abîme, René Magritte, Private Collection. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

What Magritte found out in Paris

The artist’s time in the French capital was not a success, but it formed his thinking about words and pictures

21 Mar 2018
Landscape near Felpham, William Blake

William Blake at heaven’s gate

What did William Blake really see when he looked at the Sussex landscape?

20 Mar 2018
The Famous Women Dinner Service (set of 50) (c. 1932–34), Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

It’s time to recognise the radicalism of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant

A rediscovered set of dinner plates depicting famous women prompts a reassessment of the pair’s artistic collaboration

19 Mar 2018
Installation view of 'Yto Barrada: Agadir' at The Curve, Barbican Centre, 2018.

Yto Barrada wrestles with the ghosts of Agadir

An exhibition that takes the Agadir earthquake of 1960 as its starting point is well framed in the brutalist surrounds of the Barbican

13 Mar 2018
August: Reaping Wheat, 'Da Costa Hours' (detail; c, 1515), illuminated by Simon Bening. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

Keeping track of time in the Middle Ages

An exhibition at the Morgan Library examines medieval concepts of past, present and future

10 Mar 2018
Loe Bar (1962), Peter Lanyon.

‘A total immersion within the landscape’

From Cornish coves to remote towns in Italy, a sense of place is central to the paintings of Peter Lanyon

9 Mar 2018