Tate Britain
Late Turner: Painting Set Free, Tate BritainFriday, 12 September 2014
There is early Turner; there is late Turner. Early Turner is very much of his time: a history and landscape painter in the first half of the 19th century, looking back to the classicism of Claude and the Dutch Golden Age tradition of sombre marine... Read more... |
Constable: A Country Rebel, BBC FourSunday, 07 September 2014
Presenter Alastair Sooke looked alarmingly fit, careering round the British countryside and the streets of Paris on his bicycle, talking all the while (and never out of breath) as he described the artistic trajectory of John Constable. In the... Read more... |
British Folk Art, Tate BritainWednesday, 11 June 2014
I agreed with some reluctance to review British Folk Art, since I anticipated an overdose of quaint charm, naive whimsy and endearing eccentricity. You know the kind of thing – fire screens embroidered with overblown flowers and paintings of fat... Read more... |
Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation, Tate BritainSunday, 01 June 2014
Lord, I confess I have never seen Kenneth Clark’s epic 13-part series Civilisation. Not in its entirety at any rate – only snippets on YouTube, and, more recently, excerpts at Tate Britain’s current exhibition, where highlights from his many... Read more... |
Phyllida Barlow: Dock, Tate BritainWednesday, 02 April 2014
The revamping of Tate Britain has produced such an atmosphere of understated elegance that one hardly dares breathe for fear of displacing a particle of dust. An air of suffocating sterility has seeped into the displays, which are so tastefully... Read more... |
Ruin Lust, Tate BritainWednesday, 05 March 2014
The first room of Ruin Lust is a knockout. Three large-scale pictures indicate the enduring fascination that ruins have held for artists over the centuries. John Martin’s apocalyptic view of Vesuvius smothering Pompeii in a vast cloud of volcanic... Read more... |
Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists, Tate BritainWednesday, 13 November 2013
A chronological hang of its permanent collection instead of the once so modish thematic one, a show devoted entirely to contemporary painting, which was not at all modish until quite recently – things are definitely astir at Tate Britain. Next week... Read more... |
Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm, Tate BritainFriday, 18 October 2013
Seeing the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, I felt a rush of euphoria despite deep reservations about the American invasion. My (misplaced) optimism was shared by the Iraqi student, Ayass Mohammed. ’“Suddenly I felt freedom... Read more... |
Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, Tate BritainSunday, 30 June 2013
It’s part of the Lowry myth – the myth of many famous artists, in fact, whether or not it actually happens to be true – that he’s never been taken seriously as an artist by critics or by cognoscenti. Even the co-curator of this exhibition, T.J Clark... Read more... |
Patrick Caulfield/Gary Hume, Tate BritainWednesday, 05 June 2013
Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005) is the greatest late 20th-century British painter the international art world has never heard of. This quietly magnificent exhibition of about 35 paintings, most of them very large, may at last bring about a... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2013 shortlist: Is David Shrigley an artist? and other thoughtsThursday, 25 April 2013
“Is David Shrigley an artist?,” a journalist asked at Tate Britain’s Turner Prize shortlist announcement this morning. Well, many would say so, though The Arts Desk critic Judith Flanders had her own reservations after seeing his Hayward... Read more... |
Schwitters in Britain, Tate BritainWednesday, 30 January 2013
The Pop Art collages of Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi and, more recently, the wayward sculptures and installations of artists like Phyllida Barlow would be unthinkable without the inspirational presence in Britain of Kurt Schwitters. Yet the... Read more... |
