Search results for: first look

Will the real William Shakespeare please stand up? The effigy above the playwright’s grave in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Is this what Shakespeare really looked like?

A dumpy effigy in a church in Stratford-upon-Avon has been mocked for centuries, but new research claims it’s the most accurate likeness of the playwright there is

23 Mar 2021
Playing false: Glafira Rosales, in a still from ‘Made You Look’.

Made You Look – a true crime doc that should terrify art collectors

The knavery and folly of the rarefied art world are writ large in a documentary that picks over the Knoedler forgery scandal

16 Mar 2021
Left: Addie Card, 12 Years Old, Spinner in cotton mill, North Pownal, Vermont (1910), Lewis Hine. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Right: Digital colourisation of Lewis Hine’s photograph of Addie Card by Marina Amaral. Photo: © Marina Amaral

Does the past look better in black and white?

Photographers and film-makers have long added colour to their images – but does the current craze for colourisation create a false impression of olden times?

11 Mar 2021
David Medalla (1942–2020).

With no limit to his curiosity, David Medalla brought a truly global outlook to 1960s London

From his sitting room in west London, the Manila-born artist created a vital space for avant-garde artists and writers

3 Feb 2021

Arty films and books to look forward to in 2021

From a Netflix flick about the Sutton Hoo dig to a study of women’s self-portraits – the must-see movies and a first reading list for art lovers

4 Jan 2021
Dante (detail; c. 1448–49), Andrea del Castagno.

The major art anniversaries to look out for in 2021

Plans for exhibitions and events may be up in the air, but the anniversaries they mark are fixed in the calendar

1 Jan 2021
View of the extension on the back of the former Museum and Art Gallery and Central Library.

‘It is hard not to smile on first stepping inside the Box’ – at Plymouth’s new museum

It might not work from the outside, but inside Plymouth’s new civic museum curators have taken a fresh approach to Plymouth’s wide-ranging collections

11 Nov 2020
The Humboldt Forum in the centre of Berlin, due to open in December 2020.

Why are Berlin’s new buildings so intent on looking backwards?

The reconstruction of the Berlin Palace is just one example of the city’s nostalgia for the past

20 Oct 2020
Citizen Tallien in a Cell in La Force Prison, Holding Her Cut Hair (detail), (1796), Jean-Louis Laneuville. Private collection. Photo: courtesy Yale University Press; © Christies Images/Bridgeman Images

The women who wanted to look like living statues

A study of neoclassical dress in the 1790s shows that fashion can be a serious business

4 Sep 2020
Memento mori medallion (1612), Jan de Vos. Georg Laue Kunstkammer (£58,000)

What to look out for at London Art Week this summer

From 3 to 10 July the galleries of Mayfair and St James’s are putting on physical and digital displays to appeal to dedicated connoisseurs and casual browsers alike

1 Jul 2020
Gilded statues and ritual objects arranged by Alice S. Kandell

Looking closely at art during lockdown

Philip Hewat-Jaboor, chairman of Masterpiece London, and Tibetan art specialist Alice S. Kandell on spending more time with objects

24 Jun 2020
Komainu (lion-dogs) (c. 1300), Japan.

Masterpiece pulls out the stops for its first online edition

Virtual viewing rooms, video tours and private Zoom meetings – here’s what to expect from Masterpiece Online

16 Jun 2020
Detail showing the ‘second cabinet’ on page 50 of the Catalogue des Tableaux de Mr Julienne (c. 1756), compiled by Jean-Baptiste-François de Montullé. Morgan Library and Museum, New York

Getting the hang of it – a look inside the home of an 18th-century collector in Paris

An illustrated inventory made for Jean de Jullienne shows us how his paintings were displayed

29 Apr 2020
The Christ Vine and Scenes from the Legend of St Barbara (detail; 1523), Lorenzo Lotto. Suardi Chapel, Trescore Balneario. Photo: Pro Loco Trescore Balneario

Local colour – what the Renaissance looked like beyond Venice, Florence and Rome

A new study focuses on the painters working outside the main artistic centres of Italy

27 Apr 2020
Head with Horns (detail; before 1894), artist unknown. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

A closer look at the ‘fake’ Gauguin at the Getty

The wooden horned head is now believed to be by an unknown artist. Questions over its attribution to Gauguin were examined in Apollo in 2009, in an article republished in full here

31 Jan 2020
The new glass roof covering the courtyard of the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. Photo: Tomasz Markowski; © National Museum in Kraków

A new look for the princely collection that now belongs to the Polish state

The Princes Czartoryski Museum in Kraków has reopened after a decade of controversies and delays

30 Jan 2020
Manuscript page with a drawing of Venice (detail; 1346–50), Fra Niccolò da Poggibonsi.

What did Venice look like to a medieval pilgrim from Tuscany?

A 14th-century sketch by a travelling friar is now thought to be the earliest known drawing of the city

29 Jan 2020
A copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, coming to auction at Christie’s, New York, on 24 April.

Shakespeare’s First Folio will set you back millions – but its cultural value is immeasurable

A complete version of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays is up for sale. What is it that makes this book so desirable?

22 Jan 2020
The Mass at Dordrecht (c. 1650), Aelbert Cuyp. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Art anniversaries to look out for in 2020

From Renaissance painting to Romantic poetry – expect celebrations of Raphael, Piranesi, Wordsworth and more

2 Jan 2020

Arty films and books to look out for in 2020

From The Rock as an art detective to warts-and-all Warhol – the must-see films and a first reading list for art lovers

30 Dec 2019

School of rock – inside the new-look Aberdeen Art Gallery

After a £35m renovation and expansion, the granite city can finally display its collections in the manner they deserve

18 Dec 2019
Susanna and the Elders (detail; 1866), Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Frye Art Museum, Seattle.

Women looking at men looking at them – at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle

Paintings from the museum’s founding collection show the unsettling ways in which men have often represented women

29 Nov 2019
Self-portrait (detail; c. 1666), Mary Beale.

In praise of Mary Beale – one of Britain’s first women artists

A biography of one of the country’s earliest professional woman painters is a fitting if belated tribute

28 Oct 2019
The Mocking of Christ (detail; c. 1280), Cimabue.

A long-lost Cimabue has emerged – and the ‘first light’ of painting now burns brighter than ever

The chance discovery in a kitchen in France has major significance for scholarship on the Florentine master

14 Oct 2019