portraits
Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer generated doppelgängersFriday, 04 April 2025
The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at Tate Britain is to start at the end by watching Nurses Come and Go, But None For Me, a film he has just completed. It lasts nearly two hours but is worth the investment since it reveals what the... Read more... |
Mickalene Thomas, All About Love, Hayward Gallery review - all that glittersWednesday, 26 February 2025
On walking into Mikalene Thomas’s exhibition at the Hayward Gallery my first reaction was “get me out of here”. To someone brought up on the paired down, less-is-more aesthetic of minimalism her giant, rhinestone-encrusted portraits are like a kick... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Visual ArtsMonday, 30 December 2024
I thought I might never be able to say it’s been a great year for women artists, so forgive me for focusing solely on them.Things were kickstarted with a retrospective of Barbara Kruger (Serpentine Gallery) who uses words and images to illuminate... Read more... |
Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstractionTuesday, 22 October 2024
The Bloomsbury group’s habit of non-binary bed-hopping has frequently attracted more attention than the artworks they produced. But in their Vanessa Bell retrospective, the MK Gallery has steered blissfully clear of salacious tittle tattle.... Read more... |
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performanceSaturday, 24 February 2024
At the turn of the 20th century, London’s smart set queued up to get their portraits painted by American-born artist John Singer Sargent. Sitting for him was a performance, a way to show the world just how rich, glamorous, clever or important you... Read more... |
Mark Rothko, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris review - a show well worth the trip across the ChannelTuesday, 28 November 2023
The vast and various spaces of Frank Gehry’s monumental Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris suit the needs of the thrilling Mark Rothko exhibition now inhabiting its labyrinthine multi-storey suite of galleries.Some of the 115 works on display require... Read more... |
Jean Cooke: Ungardening, Garden Museum review - a cramped show of airy and spacious paintingsTuesday, 11 July 2023
It’s impossible to think about Jean Cooke’s work without taking into account her relationship with her husband, the painter John Bratby, because his controlling personality profoundly affected every aspect of her life.Had it not been for him, she... Read more... |
Lucian Freud: New Perspectives, National Gallery review - a powerful punch in the gutWednesday, 05 October 2022
There stands Lucian Freud in Reflection with Two Children (Self-portrait), 1965 (main picture) towering over you, peering mercilessly down. Is that a look of scorn on his face or merely one of detachment? His two kids seem to be squirming and... Read more... |
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, Royal Academy review – a life lived in extremisThursday, 27 January 2022
Francis Bacon Man and Beast fills most of the main galleries at the Royal Academy. Thankfully, five of the rooms are empty. The exhibition is such a dispiriting experience, I’d have been hollering like a howler monkey if there’d been any more. And... 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... |
William Feaver: The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame 1968-2011 review - mesmerising, exhaustive and obsessively detailedSunday, 13 September 2020
This is a biography like no other, more or less dictated by Lucian Freud. William Feaver spoke with the artist perhaps almost daily for nearly 40 years, visiting frequently, taking notes, recording, and being shown work in progress. The second... Read more... |
My Rembrandt review - hard cash and hubrisSaturday, 15 August 2020
In the gloomy splendour of Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch gazes up at Rembrandt’s Old Woman Reading, 1655. The painting has belonged to the Scott family for more than 250 years, and like generations before him, the... Read more... |
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