Seven years ago the Courtauld Institute mounted a thrilling exhibition by showing only two works by Manet. Admittedly they were both undoubted masterpieces, the Barmaid at the Folies Bergere of 1883 and The Luncheon from Munich of 1868. It demonstrated that an absorbing experience could be staged with the import of only one picture. We… Continue reading Manet at the Royal Academy
Bargain basement royal portraiture
This is the portrait of an intelligent, thoughtful and educated sitter with no less than a degree in art history. It is perfectly adequate for the boardroom of a supermarket but entirely inadequate for a national collection. Kate deserves better. We deserve better too, and so does the future. This commission – Kate’s first official… Continue reading Bargain basement royal portraiture
Tate trustees and the public interest
In 2011 the Tate named two new trustees, one of whom is painter Tomma Abts. She is a 44-year-old German, recently appointed Professor of Painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, who won the Turner Prize in 2006. As an artist trustee, she replaced Jeremy Deller, who won the Turner Prize in 2004. Abts’s paintings are… Continue reading Tate trustees and the public interest
In the course of justice
Damien Hirst has loaned for 20 years to the north Devon seaside resort of Ilfracombe – in which he has one of his many residences – a 20-metre high sculpture of a pregnant woman wielding a sword and scales, called Verity. Made of glass fibre with a bronze effect finish (which is a bit tacky-Essex… Continue reading In the course of justice
Faking it
“Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.” (Orson Welles in F For Fake) As so many gifted painters have discovered to their cost, having an unusual talent is not necessarily a passport to a meteoric career. So many whose abilities deserve to be recognised, or at the very least acknowledged, struggle cruelly in… Continue reading Faking it
Rothko vandalism
Last year it was Poussin in the National Gallery, this year Rothko at the Tate. There will have been other examples of vandalism in between these which galleries hushed up, and it is likely that you wouldn’t have known about the Rothko episode had it not been witnessed and photographed. Museums don’t like admitting to… Continue reading Rothko vandalism
How state art robs the people
Chances are you won’t have heard of David Mulholland (1946-2005), a painter of and from Middlesbrough. Until last year, when a group of friends devoted to the preservation of his memory sent me some of his pictures, neither had I. The work hit me immediately as authentic, born of intimate feeling for its subject. Most… Continue reading How state art robs the people
Turner Prize No. 27 … 28 … 29 …
Having slipped into its tedious annual routine, the Turner Prize is upon us again, at Tate Britain, until January 6th; the winner – £25,000 better off – is announced to a live television audience of well into double figures on December 3rd. Those responsible for organising this banquet of self-congratulation continue to fanfare its importance,… Continue reading Turner Prize No. 27 … 28 … 29 …
A modern masterpiece
This large triptych of almost medieval ambition by Ben Sullivan, depicting the 27 non-academic staff of All Souls College in Oxford each of whom sat for the artist, was exhibited briefly during the autumn in the Ashmolean. It is now in its intended permanent home in the southernmost of Hawksmoor’s twin towers at the college.… Continue reading A modern masterpiece
The end of Henry Moore in public?
Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure (1952/3) has been removed from outside the civic centre in Castleford in order, it is claimed, to protect it from theft by scrap metal merchants. Erected in 1980 (in the sculptor’s home town no less), it is not known when or where the work will be returned to view – presumably… Continue reading The end of Henry Moore in public?