modernism
War in the Sunshine, Estorick CollectionTuesday, 17 January 2017
North London’s much loved Estorick Collection is reopening its doors after a five-month spruce up. The Georgian listed building that houses a 120-piece collection of modern Italian art now boasts a new glass conservatory, opened out entrance hall... Read more... |
Flaming June, Leighton House MuseumThursday, 24 November 2016
The chances are, you’ve only ever seen Flaming June in reproduction: since 1963 it has resided in the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, an out-of-the-way location that reflects the universal disdain for Victorian art in the post-war period.... Read more... |
The Radical Eye, Tate ModernThursday, 10 November 2016
“For me photography is a journey of discovery”, says Elton John. “I buy what I like and if it's not fashionable I don’t care. The more you collect, the more sophisticated your eye becomes.” He realised he had become a serious collector when, in 1993... Read more... |
Paul Nash, Tate BritainMonday, 31 October 2016
In Monster Field, 1938, fallen trees appear like the fossilised remains of giant creatures from prehistory. With great horse-like heads, and branches like a tangle of tentacles and legs, Paul Nash’s series of paintings and photographs serve as... Read more... |
Picasso Portraits, National Portrait GalleryThursday, 06 October 2016
There’s something familiar about those dark, piercing eyes, but the impenetrable, mask-like countenance of Picasso’s Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906, is ultimately unknowable. In fact, the painting serves as something of a rebuke: we think we know... Read more... |
Helaine Blumenfeld: 'Beauty has become synonymous with something banal'Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Helaine Blumenfeld was living in Paris in the 1960s when she received an invitation from the Russian-born sculptor Ossip Zadkine to attend one of his salons. Zadkine had emigrated to Paris at the beginning of the century, evolving a style influenced... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bilbao: The School of Paris at the Guggenheim MuseumSunday, 29 May 2016
Painted during his first trip to Paris in 1900, Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette is an outsider’s view of an exotic and intimidating new world. Men and women are seen as if through some strange distorting lens, their blurred, mask-like faces... Read more... |
Alberto Giacometti, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, NorwichSaturday, 30 April 2016
An exceptionally wide-ranging exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings and lithographs by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) commemorates the 50th anniversary of his death. Amidst the flurry of Giacometti exhibitions – the National Portrait Gallery... Read more... |
John Piper, Pallant House Gallery, ChichesterThursday, 28 April 2016
You wouldn't judge a painting on how it would look in your own home, but textiles are different: in fact it is exactly this assessment that counts. A length of fabric laid flat is a half-formed thing: it needs to be cut, stitched and draped before... Read more... |
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) - 'Music for anyone and everyone'Tuesday, 15 March 2016
With the death of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies from leukaemia at the age of 81, the UK has lost the most prolific composer of his generation, as well as one of the most passionate advocates for art music.Maxwell Davies, known universally as Max, wrote... Read more... |
Albums of 2015: Julia Holter - Have You in My WildernessWednesday, 30 December 2015
For some musicians operating on the leftfield, achieving accessibility or commercial success means compromising their unique vision. Not so with Los Angeles singer-songwriter-producer Julia Holter. Her first three albums – four, if you include 2009'... Read more... |
Best of 2015: ArtMonday, 28 December 2015
From weaselly shyster to spineless drip, the biographies of Goya’s subjects are often superfluous: exactly what he thought of each of his subjects is jaw-droppingly evident in each and every portrait he painted. Quite how Goya got away with it is a... Read more... |
