art collectors
Generation Painting 1955-65, Heong Gallery, CambridgeTuesday, 09 February 2016The individual colleges of the University of Cambridge can call, when needed, on an astonishing international network of alumni for expert advice, consultation and financial support. Such is the backing for an exquisite new public gallery on the... Read more... |
The Story of Scottish Art, BBC FourThursday, 14 January 2016“Finding the Light”, the second episode of this four-part series, took us to the period when Scottish intellectuals led the world in innovative and revolutionary thinking, Edinburgh’s neo-classical architecture in the leafy streets of the New Town... Read more... |
When Bowie and Boyd hoaxed the art worldTuesday, 12 January 2016In 1994 the art magazine Modern Painters invited fresh blood onto its editorial board. The new intake included a novelist, William Boyd, and a rock star, David Bowie. "That’s how I got to know him," says Boyd. "We’d sit at the table with all these... Read more... |
Collected through Love: The Michael Woodford BequestSunday, 13 December 2015Art collectors are rarely what one might expect. Everyone has their particular enthusiasms, quirks and foibles, which make their collections unique and reflective of their tastes. In my career as a curator I have learnt never to have preconceptions... Read more... |
Peggy Guggenheim: Art AddictTuesday, 08 December 2015The New Yorker Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) was the classic poor little rich girl: insecure, a woman with scores, perhaps hundreds of lovers, longing for love, the writer of tell-all memoirs. What sets her apart is that she was also the creator of... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Oslo: From heritage to art nowWednesday, 22 July 2015Things you might know about Oslo: it’s expensive and the cost of a beer, wine, dinner for two – whatever your tourist yardstick – might make your hair stand on end (the cost of living is currently second only to Singapore city, according to a 2014... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Moscow: Remembering George CostakisSunday, 22 February 2015Russia’s national gallery, the Tretyakov, bears the name of its founder Pavel Tretyakov, the 19th-century merchant who bequeathed his huge collection of Russian art to the city of Moscow in 1892. His bust stands proudly overseeing the entrance to... Read more... |
Magnificent Obsessions, Barbican Art GalleryFriday, 13 February 2015The title has it about right: no matter what it is they are busily acquiring, collectors seem to be an obsessive bunch, and their obsessions can achieve quite magnificent proportions. The stereotyped image of the collector as a socially challenged... Read more... |
Bakersfield Mist, Duchess TheatreWednesday, 28 May 2014When a big star meets a small play, they go one of two ways - they step up to it like a believer, or they clue in the audience that this is all a bit low, throwing everything they have in the toolkit at it, playing the actor who does what one can... Read more... |
Houghton Revisited: The Walpole CollectionSaturday, 21 September 2013What is the extraordinary, crowd-drawing appeal of a picture collection reunited, for a short time only, with its original surroundings? Well, for a start, this is no modest assembly of old masters, and Houghton Hall's elaborately crafted ensemble... Read more... |
The Man Who Collected the World: William Burrell, BBC FourThursday, 22 August 2013Had the wealthy William Burrell had a son, Glasgow might not have acquired the world-class art collection that the shipping entrepreneur amassed during his long life. But with the birth of a sole daughter came both ambitions and suspicion – he... Read more... |
Birth of a Collection: The Barber Institute, National GalleryFriday, 31 May 2013Lady Barber (1869-1933) née Hattie Onions, had her portrait painted in sumptuous style about 30 times, mostly in a sub-Orpen vein, and almost all by the unknown Belgian Nestor Cambier. But that was the very least of her occupations. Her husband, the... Read more... |