Painting

Booksreview

Van Dyck's greatest portraits as an opera in four acts

This elegant and suggestively written monograph is the fruit of 70 years’ reflections on the Flemish artist’s portraiture

The Harvest: painted in a single summer's day, here's why this is Van Gogh’s finest landscape

Vincent needed to recover from his intensive work with a stiff drink and his beloved pipe

a blog by Martin Bailey
Booksreview

Grand mural projects: a vital chapter in British art history

In her book, Lydia Hamlett unpacks the literary, cultural and political significance of “the animated wall”

Podcastspodcast

Slavery: the groundbreaking Dutch exhibition confronting colonial history

Plus, Leonora Carrington's Surrealist children's book behind the next Venice Biennale and Rubens's landscapes reunited after 200 years

Hosted by Ben Luke. with guest speaker Joanna Moorhead. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack, Aimee Dawson and Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's
Exhibitionsinterview

Frank Bowling: ‘My art isn’t about politics, it’s about paint’

As several shows of his work open, the artist talks about the distinctive transatlantic influences on his art, the role of politics, and art for art’s sake

Édouard Manet and modern beauty: prettier, more frivolous and gallant

A series of essays explores the 'feminisation' of the artist's later practice

Rarely seen paintings by Nina Hamnett, fringe member of the Bloomsbury Group, to go on show at Charleston

The artist, who was most famous as a model and a memoirist, specialised in portraits of working people and her artistic circle

Book Clubfeature

The American who brought Modern masterpieces to Iran

A new memoir by curator Donna Stein reveals the story behind the creation of a Western art collection for the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in the 1970s

The places you can’t go: Ellen Harvey recreates lost places

Her Disappointed Tourist project now includes more than 200 sites submitted by the public

Scientists unveil 'whitest paint ever'—and museums can't wait to get their hands on it

The material, which reflects 98% of light, will have significant use in cooling buildings and fighting climate change

Researchers suggest that trippy hallucinations influenced prehistoric cave art

Reduced oxygen resulting from the use of torches in narrow enclosed spaces likely triggered hypoxia, resulting in out-of-body experiences, scholars report

Tess Jarayinterview

Tess Jaray: ‘I wanted to make space, to make something that you could disappear into’

As shows of her paintings open in the UK and Austria, Jaray reflects on the influence of Piero della Francesca and Brunelleschi on her work across six decades

Getty acquires a striking painting by Artemisia Gentileschi of the Roman heroine Lucretia

The museum, which did not disclose the price, says the work reflects a shift to a more idealised style

Victorian watercolours by trailblazing British feminist and social justice campaigner come up for auction

Ewbank Auctions in England has estimated the amateur paintings by Josephine Butler at around £250 each

Artist Yan Pei-Ming makes vast pandemic painting inspired by plague scenes of the Isenheim altarpiece

“The viewer might be shocked. It is life today,” says the artist who created the Covid-19 works in isolation in his studio in Dijon

Unseen Van Gogh painting of Paris—owned by one French family for a century—could make $10m at Sotheby’s

The rare work shows a distinctive pastoral side to the city's Montmartre neighbourhood

When everything turned upside down: Georg Baselitz donates six pathbreaking paintings to the Met

Portraits date from 1969, a pivotal point for an artist departing from conventional motifs

Its attribution restored, a Rembrandt portrait goes on view in Pennsylvania

A scientific analysis and conservation effort unveiled signature brush strokes and other marks of the master

At US Capitol, a new president and vice president greet 1859 painting with a rainbow theme

Painting by Black artist was chosen under Jill Biden’s guidance for a gift-giving ceremony

US Capitol’s works of art survive amid right-wing rampage in Washington

The authorities say that cleaning and conservation will be needed, however, after art was damaged by tear gas, pepper spray and fire extinguishers

The Big Review—Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul

The British artist rekindles her love affair with the work of her favourite artist at the Royal Academy—and it is Emin whose voice emerges strongest

Booksreview

Fernand Khnopff and the art of introspection—exhaustive book offers last word on Belgian Symbolist

The outcome of decades of research, this meticulously produced volume gives insight into artist's full oeuvre

Art marketanalysis

‘We have to broaden our reach, be more interesting’: the year the Old Master trade went digital

The pandemic has forced a resolutely analogue trade to go digital. Despite the technical hurdles, the results have surprised even traditionalists

A brush with... Christina Quarles

An in-depth podcast conversation on the artist's big influences, from epic musicals to James Baldwin

'I’m excited to know that what I’ve made has physically never been made before': Jennifer Packer's extrasensory paintings come to London

Ahead of shows at the Serpentine Galleries in London and, next year, at MoCA in Los Angeles, the US painter reflects on the power—and constraints—of her medium

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s political—with a small ‘p’—portraits finally go on show at Tate Britain

The British artist's largest exhibition to date will also be shown in Stockholm, Dusseldorf and Luxembourg

Obituariesfeature

Remembering Kenzo Takada, the designer and artist who created the first global, multicultural, fashion brand

In everything he made—clothes, spectacles inspired by his trademark round lenses, home furnishings, parfumerie—Takada's love of fine art remained close at hand

Missing for decades, a Jacob Lawrence painting surfaces in response to a Met exhibition

A visitor makes the connection between the artist’s Struggle series and a work in a neighbour’s home

Exhibitionsinterview

Cecily Brown: ‘I’m trying to understand what England means to me’

With her delayed show now open at Blenheim Palace, the British-born painter explains that she is as likely to be inspired by childhood comics as historic battle scenes