Visual Arts Features
Yuletide Scenes: Piero della Francesca's NativityMonday, 21 December 2015
At first sight Piero della Francesca’s The Nativity appears to be a simple picture, especially when compared with more flamboyant depictions of the scene by artists such as Gentile de Fabriano, Botticelli and Rubens. Like a director staging a play on a limited budget, Piero has been sparing with his cast, props and scenery. Read more... |
Collected through Love: The Michael Woodford BequestSunday, 13 December 2015
Art 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 when visiting collectors. The best pictures can often be found in the most modest of homes. Nothing can beat the buzz of encountering an iconic artwork in the most unlikely of settings. Read more... |
An Open Book: Chantal JoffeTuesday, 15 September 2015
Huge canvases, bold, expressive brushwork and a full-bodied, vibrant palette. Chantal Joffe’s figurative paintings are certainly striking and seductive. Citing American painter Alice Neel and American photographer Diane Arbus as two abiding influences, Joffe’s portraits are predominantly of women and children who often convey a sense of awkwardness and social unease. Read more... |
An Open Book: Bruce McCallSaturday, 15 August 2015
Polo played in surplus First World War tanks; zeppelin-shooting as a gentlemanly leisure pursuit; the mighty vessel RMS Tyrannic, proud host of the Grand Ballroom Chariot Race and so safe "that she carries no insurance". These are just some of Canadian satirical writer and artist Bruce McCall’s ingenious retro-futurist creations. Read more... |
An Open Book: Conrad ShawcrossSaturday, 08 August 2015
From complex machines, whirring busily but with no useful function, to structures that allude to the fundamental building blocks of the universe, Conrad Shawcross (born 1977) uses sculpture to explore the big ideas of philosophy and science. A graduate of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and the Slade School of Art, he bacame the youngest living Royal Academician in 2013. This year – punctuated by a series of prestigious public sculptures – has been his busiest yet. Read more... |
An Open Book: Quentin BlakeSaturday, 01 August 2015
Quentin Blake, illustrator, cartoonist and children’s author, has, to date, illustrated over 300 books. He is most famously associated with Roald Dahl, but he’s worked with a number of children’s writers, most recently David Walliams, illustrating the actor's debut novel The Boy in the Dress. He is a patron of The Big Draw which aims to get people of all ages drawing throughout the UK, and of The Nightingale Project, a charity that puts art into hospitals. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Oslo: From heritage to art nowWednesday, 22 July 2015
Things 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 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit); it’s small (population: 600,000), yet it’s also the fastest growing capital in Europe, thanks to both overseas immigration and the fact that many Norwegians are now moving to the capital; its most... Read more... |
theartsdesk in New York: On Kawara at the Guggenheim MuseumSunday, 05 April 2015
On a snowy day in early spring in New York, the On Kawara – Silence show at the Guggenheim is unlikely to warm you up. His date paintings, postcards, telegrams and other coldly ur-conceptual accountings spiral up those famous white Frank Lloyd Wright stairs, seemingly ad infinitum. But it’s a powerful, hypnotic experience, one that seeps into your subconscious and becomes a meditation on time and space. Read more... |
Brighton Festival: The Locations That Make the FestivalFriday, 03 April 2015
Andrew Comben, CEO of the Brighton Festival, chooses ten locations that have resonance with the annual event. He talks about their past and future but, most particularly, what will be happening this May Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bilbao: Niki de Saint Phalle at the Guggenheim MuseumThursday, 02 April 2015
This is work that wears its heart on its sleeve. That’s what gets you in the end in this big retrospective of the work of Niki de Saint Phalle. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
The World's Greatest Paintings, Channel 5 review - enth...
Andrew Marr’s art show is a lot of fun, although engulfed in almost overwhelming banality and cliché. Our enthusiastic...
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Belfast Gypsies
There’s something wrong with the picture above. It’s the sleeve of a French EP issued in August...
The Other One, BBC One review - entertaining odd-couple sitc...
This engaging sitcom created by comedian Holly Walsh has had a...
The music of isolation: conductor Ian Page on 18th century...
My latest recording with The Mozartists is the first in a seven-...
Album: John Scofield, Steve Swallow, Bill Stewart - Swallow...
Swallow Tales is a great album. It took three musicians...
Classical music/Opera direct to home 14 - sound and vision a...
As more musicians emerge from lockdown to conduct, play and sing in audience-less venues - ongoing kudos to the...
Coriolanus, National Theatre at Home review – gritty 21st ce...
An arrogant leader contemptuous of his people. Could there...
La voix humaine, Grange Park Opera online review – hanging o...
Rustles of renewal are stirring in the Surrey woods where Grange Park Opera...