We don’t hear enough of Birgitta Birgersdotter and her immense contribution to Christmas. Basically, she invented it. These days, alas, her fabulous involvement goes under the radar. It never used to. Birgitta was from Uppland in Sweden. She was born in about 1303 and when she was 13 she was married off to Ulf Gudmarsson, […]

These are exciting times in art. Every day seems to bring new evidence of fertility and achievement in two key areas — black art and women’s art. Some have been sniffy about it and are calling it a fashion, but they’re wrong. It’s a revelation. The canon is being rewritten and accompanying the rewrite is […]

Room 17a is not one of the rooms I usually rush to when I visit the National Gallery. In the past it has been a “footnote” room, appended to the Dutch collection and filled with pretty floral still-lifes or gadgety Dutch box illusions. Pleasing, rather than crucial. Not any more. Today, it has in it […]

Some things in life are just not meant to go together. Oil and water spring immediately to mind. As do oysters and peaches, Kim and Kanye, denim and denim. It’s true, as well, of football and art. Forces bigger than us have ordained that football is one thing, art is another thing, and the two […]