Category: Articles

  • Elgin blow to the Acropolis

    ‘Treasure’ Neil MacGregor, also the safest and most inspired pair of hands in the world of National Museums and Galleries, has finally decided to put the foot down on the peripatetic speculation about the Elgin Marbles. This dashes any possible…

  • Gormley in China

    The 120,000 clay figures produced under Antony Gormley’s direction by 300 Chinese workers in the Huada District of Guangzhou province, are shortly to travel to Beijing, where they will be marshalled into the Forbidden City, beside Tiananmen Square. This gathering,…

  • Raphael removal risk

    The Duke of Northumberland’s ‘Madonna of the Pinks’ has been sold and removed from exhibition at the National Gallery to be sent to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles: just one of a continuing series of works lost to the…

  • NYC Sex in the City

    The Museum of Sex recently opened in New York City. Unlike the wow TV series Sex in the City, which is strangely, obliquely conservative (well, with a small ‘c’), this museum intends to show how even sex in America transforms…

  • Going shopping?

    If there was any evidence to prove that art is becoming a commodity, and even more so a consumer product, the excellent exhibition running at Tate Liverpool makes the issue crystal clear. ‘Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture’…

  • Tate Britain reaches out

    It is fair to say that the painter Graham Sutherland is not being served well by the national galleries in commemoration of the centenary of his birth. In April, Tate Britain will offer one room of works from its own…

  • How cities renew, rebuild & remember

    Perhaps it was just a little ironic that, at a time when the bombing of Baghdad was in the offing, a conference should be held in The Lighthouse, Glasgow, Scotland on Sense & the City. Addressed by speakers representing Glasgow,…

  • Botticelli worth £10 million found in vaults at National Gallery

    After lying unidentified for more than 150 years in the vaults of the National Gallery in London, a masterpiece by Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli has been identified. If it were put up for auction, it is estimated it would…

  • Giorgio De Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne

    Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London 22 January-13 April 2003

  • New acquisition: Quattro Stagioni by Cy Twombly, Tate Modern, London

    American artist Cy Twombly has four tall canvases on exhibition at the Tate Modern. ‘Quattro Stagioni’ (Four Seasons), a painting in four parts, was executed during the period 1993-94. The Edinburgh exhibition was the first solo exhibition in Scotland. The…

  • Zeroing Ground Zero

    In early March, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will publicly announce the winner of the two finalists shortlisted to provide designs for the reconstruction of the 11 million square feet of office space destroyed on 11 September 2001.

  • David Hockney: Painting on Paper

    Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 17 January-1 March 2003.

  • Tate Modern beckoning

    Overlapping here with the Art Deco exhibition, the Beckmann exhibition at Tate Modern will reveal the murkier, gloomy and claustrophobic world-weariness of Germany in a time of uncertainty and growing depression. What the Tate team will excel at will be…

  • Art Deco at V&A

    The Victoria and Albert Museum will open a sequel to its successful Art Nouveau show, held in 2000, with Art Deco 1910-1939 on 27 March through 20 July. Drawing upon the wealth of material from the 1920s, a period that…

  • Obesity to order

    At Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Modern Art, (a short run from Sainsbury or Tesco) a celebration of over-indulgence can be found, or one might say, psychopathic obsession. Food is not on display, but Duane Hanson’s unerringly life-sized figures reveal in…

  • Saatchi Gallery

    Cameras stand in keen anticipation around County Hall, London, for the planned April opening of the re-located Saatchi Gallery. Here, Nigella will soon be heard and young British artists (YBAs) will rise again, cloning a second generation, escaping the Turner…

  • Titian: a must

    The Titian exhibition opening at the National Gallery, London (19 February through 18 May 2003) promises to be a unique experience unlikely to be repeated in decades. Tiziano Vecellio was born before the end of the 15th century, grew up…

  • Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy: The graphic work of a Renaissance artist

    British Museum, London. 5 December-23 March 2003

  • Painting, Passion and Politics: Masterpieces from the Walpole Collection

    Somerset House, London (28 September 2002-30 March 2003)

  • Aztecs at the Royal Academy

    Royal Academy, London. Until 11 April 2003. Martin-Gropius-Bar, Berlin, 17 May – 10 August 2003. Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 26 September 2003 – 11 January 2004.

  • Doodle day

    Doodle day Are architect’s doodles worth keeping, like the sketches of painters and sculptors? One of the problems is space. In the late 1970s, Robert Adam’s old home saw faded drawings being used as fire kindlers. Times have improved. Tragically,…

  • Vettriano’s popular success in art

    Painter Jack Vettriano, bête noir of the Scottish arts establishment yet feverishly pursued by collectors from both sides of the Atlantic, has been exercising intelligent philanthropy in Scotland, supporting student ventures, and yet keeping a relatively low profile in his…

  • Aztecs

    Aztecs, Royal Academy of Arts, London opened on 16 November. It is a remarkable and brilliant exhibition. This is a groundbreaking show of the same ilk as the Tutankhamen show of the 1970s or the Africa exhibition of 1995.

  • Bryan Robertson

    Bryan Robertson has died – the greatest Tate Gallery Director we never had. Still active at 72, Robertson transformed the Whitechapel Gallery from 1952. Director at the early age of 27, he also transformed the public awareness worldwide, of Australian…