Reviews

The Great Leveller (detail; 2010), Alexander James

Why are artists obsessed with death?

To devote an entire show and a book exclusively to artists’ images of death – and nothing else – seems profoundly odd

23 Oct 2017
Vincent (Robert Gulaczyk).

A moving picture of Vincent van Gogh

The new film ‘Loving Vincent’ has its mawkish moments, but its oil-painted imagery sets it apart

20 Oct 2017
Harbor Marina (Morning), Memphis, TN (2000), Alec Soth. © Magnum/Alec Soth. Image courtesy of Beetles+Huxley and Sean Kelly Gallery, NY

Taking notes with Alec Soth

Soth’s photographs in ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi’ are beautiful and intriguing, but the stories behind them bring them to life

17 Oct 2017
The print sller (detail; 1675–96), Jan van Somer. Photo © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The art market in the Forum

A new exhibition at the Bucerius Art Forum in Hamburg looks at how the market for art changed in 17th-century Holland

16 Oct 2017

How the French Rothschilds turned their private passions into public gifts

A monumental new study argues that ‘the patronage of the French Rothschild family is a European history of taste’

14 Oct 2017
Tate St Ives by Jamie Fobert Architects. Photo © Hufton+Crow

The international mission of Tate’s Cornish outpost

Tate St Ives reopens to the public this autumn following the completion of a major expansion

13 Oct 2017
Mattias Härenstam, Lorck Schive Kunstpris 2017. Photo: TKM/ Susann Jamtøy

Norway’s top art prize brings the focus back home

The four artists shortlisted for this year’s Lorck Schive Kunstpris all find ways of challenging local artistic traditions

11 Oct 2017
Pamela and Mr B. in the Summer House, by Joseph Highmore, Joseph Higmore, The Fitzwilliam Museum.

The Foundling Museum brings Joseph Highmore out of the shadows

Joseph Highmore’s morality tales are just as engaging as those of his contemporary William Hogarth

10 Oct 2017
Art Is (Girlfriends Times Two) (1983/2009), Lorraine O'Grady. Courtesy the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York; © Lorraine O'Grady

Debates in America had a powerful impact on black British artists

‘Soul of a Nation’ is the most significant contribution to debates around black art to date

7 Oct 2017

Thomas Gainsborough, the good-time guy

James Hamilton’s biography of Thomas Gainsborough presents the painter as a lad about town

6 Oct 2017
Image courtesy Four Corners Books

Ever seen an eyeball card? How about a UFO?

A new book series explores the strange subcultures of post-war Britain, from CB radio enthusiasts to alien investigators

6 Oct 2017
The Theatre Box, (detail; 1910), Oswald Birley. Private collection

Oswald Birley’s society portraits should have a wider public

The portraitist was highly sought after in his heyday, but his reputation has languished in recent years

6 Oct 2017
Still Life with Seashell on Black Marble (1940), Henri Matisse. Photo © Archives H. Matisse © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2017

The stuff of art: objects from Matisse’s studio

The objects in Matisse’s collection shaped his revolutionary aesthetic, and inspired him to push beyond the boundaries of the European tradition

4 Oct 2017

Space exploration with Lucio Fontana

Eleven of Lucio Fontana’s ‘Spatial Environments’ have been meticulously recreated in Milan – and the effects are extraordinary

3 Oct 2017
'The Disasters of Everyday Life', installation view at Blain|Southern, 2017. Courtesy the artists and Blain|Southern. Photo: Peter Mallet

The new Chapman brothers show is delightful and disturbing – and you need to see it

Featuring Goya, teddy bears and suicide vests, ‘The Disasters of Everyday Life’ is puerile, provocative, and superb

2 Oct 2017
Lubaina Himid's work at the Turner Prize 2017 exhibition in Hull. Apollo magazine.

A quiet but powerful Turner Prize

The four artists shortlisted this year tackle ideas about rootlessness and belonging in a series of understated works

28 Sep 2017
Exposition of Moses (1654), Nicholas Poussin. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Cataloguing the Ashmolean’s baroque paintings is no mean feat

The Oxford museum’s lavish new publication is a triumph of scholarship

27 Sep 2017

Urs Fischer’s bonfire of the vanities in Florence

Two wax sculptures of art impresarios were ceremonially lit today in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria

22 Sep 2017
Venus' Mirror, (1873–77), Edward Burne-Jones.

How the Pre-Raphaelites reflected on the past

What did the Pre-Raphaelite painters see when they looked at the Old Masters – and how did they use what they saw?

19 Sep 2017
Untitled (Pink Torso) (1995), Rachel Whiteread. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian. © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: © Tate (Seraphina Neville and Marke Heathcote)

Rachel Whiteread’s conspicuous absences

The artist’s ongoing record of what was not there becomes more thought-provoking as time passes

18 Sep 2017

The collector who tried to reassemble the ancient world

Cassiano dal Pozzo’s paper museum, consisting of thousands of drawings, attempted to encapsulate the knowledge of his time

14 Sep 2017
Untitled (1900), artist unknown. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Getting to grips with China’s bewildering bapo paintings

The paintings might be puzzles but they deserve to be better known

11 Sep 2017
The Battle of Culloden, April 16, 1746, (1797), published by Laurie & Whittle, National Museums Scotland

The men who pretended to be kings – and the art they inspired

Paintings, jewellery, clothes, and weapons could all be used to show support for the Jacobite pretenders’ claims to the throne

9 Sep 2017
Letters from Bombay (2012-14), Howard Hodgkin. © Howard Hodgkin, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

How India inspired Howard Hodgkin

‘Painting India’ at the Hepworth Wakefield includes many of the artist’s most engaging and joyful paintings

2 Sep 2017