Monthly Archives: April 2020

Open art galleries and let us feed our souls 2m apart

As I queued outside Tesco last week, dutifully maintaining my 6ft distance, mask on, gloves pulled, it occurred to me that I could be doing the same thing outside the National Gallery in London while waiting to see the marvellous Titian exhibition that opened there last month. It was open for a couple of days. […]

Flogging off the family silver is an ancient art

Few words trigger as much anger and consternation in cultural circles as “deaccessioning”. It’s an attempt to sound technical and managerial about an activity that stirs deep emotions. No one wants to call it what it is — “flogging off the family silver”. But, whatever words you use, it has always gone on. And with […]

Artemisia Gentileschi

Forget the lurid stories and celebrate the astonishing intimacy created by the first great female painter

Cranach, Compton Verney

Lucas Cranach took a sardonic view of the human desire for eternal youth. Will we never learn?