Sargent and Fashion has roped together two exhibition subjects that are on the up. The first is John Singer Sargent himself (1856-1925). Having spent most of the 20th century being looked down on, this busy flatterer of the rich and pushy has re-emerged in recent decades as an artist of interest. The second upwardly mobile subject […]
Recent articles
Yoko Ono is a true original — and you’ll have real fun at her show
The madcap and enchanting Yoko Ono exhibition that has arrived at Tate Modern is proof of many things. Most of them are pleasing. A few are regrettable. Certainly, that it has taken until now for Britain’s leading modern art venue to give Ono a chance is cast-iron proof, should we need any more, of the […]
Ranked: my little list of London’s leading contemporary art galleries
As I made my way round the outrageously blobby and constantly surprising new show at the Hayward Gallery, I found myself thinking about the big public spaces in London that present contemporary art, and – naughty me! – ranking them from five to one. Because that’s the kind of man I am! Number five has […]
Barbara Kruger: the artist who punches you with tabloid English
Word art is one of the more curious ingredients of contemporary art. It’s curious because it shouldn’t exist. We already have an art that deals with words — it’s called literature. That said, words do have something visually potent going for them. They are, or can be, striking pieces of design. Translating sounds into shapes […]
My friend Yoko Ono — and her art in her words
The other day I posted something positive on X about Yoko Ono. I often do. She’s a strong, independent, courageous woman. I’ve known her for years. There’s a big show of her art coming to Tate Modern. A positive post seemed in order. Or so I thought. Over the next couple of days my timeline […]
Meet the Mannerists — a forgotten movement that gave us wild, sexy art
Imagine a pebble stuck between two huge rocks. On one side looms the Renaissance, western civilisation’s most prestigious epoch, an era that gave us Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael. On the other side looms the baroque age, the thunderously exciting century that unleashed Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Veláquez, Rubens. Squeezed between these two cultural behemoths was “mannerism”, an artistic […]
Art, science and the changing face of beauty
A stimulating way to start the art year is to visit The Cult of Beauty at the Wellcome Collection. It’s an exhibition that prompts the little grey cells into immediate action, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad. At least the damn things are forced to work. Beauty is, of course, one of art’s great […]
Pauline Boty: pop art’s only female icon laid bare
Pauline Boty (1938-66) was many things — so many it’s difficult to see how she squeezed them all in. She was an actress, appearing with Michael Caine in Alfie, and in various plays on the BBC. She was a dancer, popping up regularly on the Sixties music show Ready Steady Go!. She modelled. She wrote poetry. She […]
My strange Christmas trip to Gauguin’s island paradise
The strangest Christmas I ever spent was in Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. If you get yourself a world map and a piece of string, and measure out the distance from the isle of Hiva Oa to the coast of Mexico, you will see that it’s about 3,000 miles. That makes the […]
How Soutine’s woman in a black dress became a symbol of defiance
The power of art, its seriousness, its importance, is easy to forget these days. Too easy. Go round the grim Frieze art fair, as I did this autumn in London, and all you see is hawking, money-grabbing and rich people trying to get richer. Which is why the story of Chaïm Soutine, his painting Eva, and […]
