Picasso
Capturing the Moment, Tate Modern review - the glorious power of paintingThursday, 15 June 2023
Billed as “a journey through painting and photography”, Capturing the Moment reveals many ways in which artists have responded to photography – either by taking up the camera themselves, as did Candida Höffer, Andreas Gursky, Louise Lawler and... Read more... |
After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art, National Gallery review - an impressive tour de forceSaturday, 25 March 2023
What a feast! Congratulations are due to the National Gallery for its latest blockbuster After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art. Such a superb collection of modern masters is unlikely to be assembled again under one roof, so this is a once-in-a-... Read more... |
Surrealism Beyond Borders, Tate Modern review - a disappointing mish mashMonday, 14 March 2022
The night after visiting Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders I dreamt that a swarm of wasps had taken refuge inside my skull and I feared it would hurt when they nibbled their way out again.If I painted a self-portrait with wasps escaping from... Read more... |
A Century of the Artist's Studio, Whitechapel Gallery review - a voyeur's delightWednesday, 02 March 2022
The Whitechapel Gallery's exhibition opens with Cell IX, 1999 (pictured below) one of the wire cages that Louise Bourgeois filled with memories of her dysfunctional family. This one contains a block of marble carved into hands. A tender portrayal of... Read more... |
Eileen Agar, Whitechapel Gallery review - a free spirit to the endThursday, 20 May 2021
Eileen Agar was the only woman included in the International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936, which introduced London to artists like Salvador Dali and Max Ernst. The Surrealists were exploring the creative potential of chance, chaos and the... Read more... |
Visions of the Self: Rembrandt and Now, Gagosian Gallery review - old master, new waysTuesday, 16 April 2019
What are we to make of the two circles dustily inscribed in the background of Rembrandt’s c.1665 self-portrait? In a painting that bears the fruits of a life’s experience, drawn freehand, they might be a display of artistic virtuosity, or – more... Read more... |
An encounter with John Richardson, Picasso's biographer who has died at 95Thursday, 14 March 2019
When I interviewed John Richardson, who has died at the age of 95, he was edging through his definitive four-tome life of the minuscule giant of Cubism. Of the various breaks he took from the business of research and writing, one yielded The... Read more... |
Modern Couples, Barbican review - an absurdly ambitious survey of artist loversSaturday, 13 October 2018
What an ambitious project! Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde looks at over 40 couples or, in some cases, trios whose love galvanised them into creative activity either individually or in collaboration.The best thing about the... Read more... |
Picasso 1932: Love Fame Tragedy, Tate Modern review - a diary in paint?Thursday, 22 March 2018
Painted in ice-cream shades punctuated with vivid red, the series of portraits made by Picasso in the early weeks of 1932 are as dreamy as love letters. His mistress Marie-Thérèse Walther – we assume it is she – lies adrift in post-coital languor,... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Mystery of PicassoFriday, 02 February 2018
What a gallimaufry! The polymath Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the most prolific, obsessed and best-known artists in the history; in fact, without qualification, he remains the best-known, for his genius, his mastery of so many media, his public... Read more... |
Modigliani, Tate Modern review - the pitfalls of excessFriday, 24 November 2017
Modigliani was an addict. Booze, fags, absinthe, hash, cocaine, women. He lived fast, died young, cherished an idea of what an artist should be and pursued it to his death. His nickname, Modi, played on the idea of the artiste maudit – the... Read more... |
The Most Expensive Paintings Ever SoldThursday, 16 November 2017
Yesterday the record for the most expensive painting ever sold was broken. At Christie's in New York Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi the hammer was knocked down on a price of $450 million. It's a lot of money, period, and even more for a painting... Read more... |
- 1 of 3
- ››
