painters
Natalia Goncharova, Tate Modern review - a prodigious talentWednesday, 05 June 2019
The times they are a-changin’. On show at the Barbican is a retrospective of Lee Krasner’s stunning paintings and, for the first time ever, Tate Modern is hosting two major shows of women artists. At last, the achievements of great women are... Read more... |
Lee Krasner: Living Colour, Barbican review - jaw-droppingly goodMonday, 03 June 2019
If you know of any chauvinists who dare to maintain that women can’t paint, take them to this astounding retrospective. Lee Krasner faced patronising dismissal at practically every turn in her career yet she persisted and went on to produce some of... Read more... |
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing, The Queen's Gallery review - peerless drawings, rarely seenWednesday, 29 May 2019
It is a commonplace to describe Leonardo as an enigma whose genius, and perhaps even something of his character, is revealed through his works. But as his works survive only in incomplete and fragmented form, it is drawing, the practice common to... Read more... |
Berlin: True Copy, Brighton Festival 2019 review - tricksy forgery masterclassTuesday, 28 May 2019
This brilliantly conceived and executed show is about provenance in art. It’s also about our perceptions of the truth. However, it’s a show where it would be churlish to reveal too much of what goes on. This is, of course, perverse since some will... Read more... |
Fetes and Kermesses in the Time of the Brueghels, Musée de Flandre review - all the fun of the fairSaturday, 11 May 2019
Cassel in Flanders is surrounded by the gentle and verdant landscapes that inspired Pieter Bruegel the Elder to create the populous and festive scenes for which he is still known and loved, 450 years after his death. Now the small town is... Read more... |
I Fagiolini, Hollingworth, St George's Bristol review - Leonardo and music, immortal, invisibleSaturday, 04 May 2019
Having started their tour at the Barbican on Sunday, I Fagiolini descended on Bristol with their Leonardo da Vinci celebration on precisely the 500th anniversary of the great man’s death, a fact that earned them an extra round of applause from the... Read more... |
Karl Ove Knausgaard: So Much Longing in So Little Space review – smiles more than screamsSunday, 24 March 2019
Around the works canteen, a dozen huge wall-paintings depict, in bright cheerful colours spread across radically stylised forms, happy scenes of women and men at work and play beside a sunlit sea. They till, pick, dance, chat, dream, wander or water... Read more... |
Dorothea Tanning, Tate Modern review – an absolute revelationSaturday, 09 March 2019
Tate Modern’s retrospective of Dorothea Tanning is a revelation. Here the American artist is known as a latter day Surrealist, but as the show demonstrates, this is only part of the story. Tanning’s career spanned an impressive 70 years – she died... Read more... |
Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory review, Tate Modern - plenty but emptyTuesday, 05 February 2019
“Slow looking” is the phrase du jour at Tate Modern, an enjoinder flatly contradicted by the extent of this exhibition, which in the history of the gallery’s supersized shows counts as a blow-out. Unless you plan to camp overnight, much will need to... Read more... |
Nolan: Australia's Maverick Artist, BBC Four review – a lust for life in all its aspectsMonday, 21 January 2019
Reckless, unstoppable, one step ahead of everyone else, a hell of a lot of fun, utterly charming, street smart – descriptions of the artist Sidney Nolan (1917-1992) poured out from colleagues, rivals, curators, art historians and dealers, not to... Read more... |
Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill review - a brave attempt to recreate an important collectionSaturday, 27 October 2018
It took 24 days to sell off the 4,000 items which Horace Walpole had amassed during 50 years of avid collecting. He bought a modest property beside the Thames in Twickenham in 1749 and, by 1790, had extended and transformed it into a fairy tale... Read more... |
Mantegna and Bellini, National Gallery review - curated for curatorsMonday, 08 October 2018
Pitched as “a tale of two artists”, the National Gallery’s big autumn show promises a history woven in shades of friendship and rivalry, marriage and family, privilege and hard graft. Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini were brothers-in-law,... Read more... |
