Author: jaywp

Switzerland’s Expo’02 centres on the environment of the region of the Three Lakes, in the north-west tip of Switzerland that coincides with the boundaries of France and Germany. At Murten-Morat, Jean Nouvel was commissioned to design all the actual pavilions.…

The National Gallery, London does not best mourn Ian MacGregor’s departure with this valedictory recovery of the work of Pierre-Cecile Puvis de Chavannes, (d.1898). Although the most famous muralist in France when he died aged 78, and often credited together…

The continuing question over what should rise or spread on the World Trade Centre site becomes increasingly pertinent as 11 September approaches. Of course in mediaeval Europe, assuming the perpetrators had been caught a series of gibbets would have risen,…

Quietly and with little critical attention, the Natural History Museum in London (through 15 September) shows 19 works by six artists. Entitled ‘Turbulent Landscapes’, this sequence of interactive exhibits shows the impact and essence of tornadoes, sandstorms, and other environmental…

The prolific Sir Howard Hodgkin has been distressing critics who equate his stage designs with art. Theatre designs cannot be considered in the same vein. But the designs for Mark Morris’s Kolam (April 2002) for ENO Covent Garden are supremely…

It is over 50 years since Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner moved from Greenwich Village out to Springs. David Salle spends full-time now with a new house built at Sagonapack and Julian Schnabel in 1982 had restored his house at…

Britain’s leading architectural accolade, awarded each year by the Queen, goes this year to the Archigram Group. A most famous image from Archigram Walking City was the work of the late Ron Herron. A superb retrospective exhibition of the group’s…

Few would deny that Thomas Girtin’s ‘The White House at Chelsea’ is a key British landscape painting. Girtin, (b.l775) who died in 1802, was greatly admired by 19th century successors. Turner was his exact contemporary. ‘Had Tom Girtin lived, I…

Tate St Ives has been running a successful show of the work of the major constructivist sculptor Naum Gabo since mid-July and continues until 13 October. The fact that Gabo had no truck with dealers or commercial galleries during his…

The massive hype generated for, rather than by, Tate Britain’s Lucian Freud exhibition had critics vying with one another to write the best eulogy. Still with another month to run, the greatest display of flesh ever since Smithfield revealed unwittingly…

Earlier this summer, on 20 June, Nicholas Serota introduced Artworks: Young Artists of the Year Awards, where 30 schools will be beneficiaries. The awards are designed to persuade children to engage with art through visits and through their own work.…

Edinburgh’s annual Arts Festival has long been handicapped by the limited space available in the l9th century galleries. Now a remarkable plan steered by architect John Miller will link the ailing Royal Scottish Academy to its neighbour by means of…

Chris Ofili is the first painter in ten years to have actually won the Turner Prize. His show at the Victoria Miro Gallery (ended 3 August) further consolidated his reputation. Four vast paintings fill the lower gallery, running up to…

The famous SW3 sanctuary has opened its gates to contemporary art this summer. The oldest botanical gardens in Europe have invited a group of artists to make works for installation within that convey the essence both of the almost secret…

Daniel Buren, the French experimental artist whose ambition since the 1960s has been to remove apparent human involvement (and error?) from painting, is currently occupying the entire sixth floor (2500 square metre) of the Pompidou Centre with 61 rooms to…

There was one a bright new venture called Eyestorm, which would revolutionise the way the general public could buy art. It got off to a zoomy start in 1999, too late at the top of the dotcom boom. It would…

Bill Woodrow has produced an excellent thematic essay on the age-old allegorical figure of the beekeeper, on show at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea until 17 November. The elemental quality of such figures, their protective and protected engagement…

August high season for old master recoveries

October 27 sees the opening of a major and scholarly exhibition at the National Gallery, London. Images have been retrieved from the underdrawings to major oil and tempera works by Raphael, Brueghel and Cranach the Elder, and Carlo Crevelli, as…

Australian architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall, originally of Melbourne but now well-established in London, will at last see their competition-winning design for the environs of Stonehenge get built. The target, for completion is to be 2008. The 7000-acre Stonehenge site…

A painting by Walter Sickert, entitled merely ‘One of Madame Villain’s Sons’ has been bought from Vanessa Bell’s family by the Charleston House Trust, for 24,000, dependent upon a 14,000 grant from the Art Fund charity. We are quite certain…