EDITORIAL

Old Masters for New Masters

Jeff Koons's purchase of a late-medieval sculpture sugests that contemporary artists hve a subtler understanding of the history of art than their admirers realise

ARCHITECTURE

A Vision of England

The decade after World War II was a golden age of illustrated topographical books on Britain. Among the finest were those published by Paul Elek.

Market Preview

A celebrated dealer’s furniture goes on sale, featuring a chair with a distinguished provenance, and Paris holds its annual Salon du Dessin.

Market Review

February’s Impressionist and Modern sales in London saw German expressionists take their turn to break records. Meanwhile, the inaugural Art and Antiques Dubai fair got off to a good start and Banksy did unexpectedly well in New York.

Asian Art Market

Prices for Chinese contemporary art may be about to peak but there is plenty – old and new – to tempt buyers in Hong Kong in April, writes Susan Moore.

Collector's Focus

BRITISH PRINTS BEFORE 1939
This is a market of two distinct parts – Old Masters and inter-war moderns. Both are performing strongly, with the latter attracting strong new interest on both sides of the Atlantic, writes Annie Blinkhorn.

Art Business

Salerooms are still setting records, but stock market sentiment warns that a recession is likely to hit the art market soon

Around the Galleries

April offers Op Art by Richard Allen, fine ceramics in Belgium and a retrospective of Filippo Vitale in Milan.

Taming the monster

The opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum marks the first stage in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s dramatic transformation. Its designer, Renzo Piano, hopes to bring order to lacma’s muddled site. Has he succeeded, asks Patrick McCaughey?

Taking a new route through modern art

As part of its Transformation project, Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s collections of 20th-century art have been reinstalled in the Ahmanson Building. As Stephanie Barron explains, the collection has itself been transformed by a munificent gift of 130 paintings, sculptures and drawings from Janice and Henri Lazarof, which includes 20 works by Picasso.

Drawings in Dresden

Carmen Bambach concludes her publication of new discoveries in the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden with drawings by artists of the cinquecento and early seicento.

Art at speed

A key part of Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s transformation is the newly-opened Broad Contemporary Art Museum, the result of Eli Broad’s philanthropy and insatiable appetite for art. Louise Nicholson talks to him at his la home. Photography by Mark Hanauer.

The Orange Revolution

Tim Richardson explains how the restoration of Hampton Court’s Lower Orangery Garden provides a window into late-17th-century politics as well as horticultural fashion.

Weapons of Imperialism

As an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum makes tellingly clear, maps embody complex cultural meanings, writes Huw Lewis-Jones.

Poets of the metropolis

Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman emerge as the central figures of the Camden Town group in this Tate Exhibition, writes Simon Poe.

Glittering Stars

This comprehensive overview of Scottish silver, from medieval times to striking contemporary commissions, celebrates a proud and thriving tradition, writes Philippa Glanville.

‘Furious and fantastick’

The Cooper-Hewitt’s exhibition on Piranesi – now in Haarlem – compellingly examines the way that he used his knowledge of classical art to reinvigorate modern design, writes David Adshead.

Multicultural island mix

Julian Treuherz reviews a remarkably ambitious exhibition in Germany that traces the complex course of Sicilian art from prehistory to Garibaldi.

Protectors of the kingdom

Bronzes are a neglected aspect of Egyptian art, but an exhibition now in Switzerland reveals the great significance of the finest examples, writes Guy Weill Goudchaux.

Whitman on the tube

Peyton Skipwith welcomes a definitive account of Charles Holden, the architect who more than any other shaped the image of the London Underground.

Urns for Heros

This book on Fletcher and Gardiner fills a major gap in our knowledge of American silver, writes Martin Chasin.

Art on the wards

This richly documented account of hospitals in renaissance Florence makes clear their significance as centres for the patronage of architecture and art, writes Thomas Tuohy.

Scientific serenity

Judy Egerton’s magnificent (if unwieldy) catalogue raisonné of George Stubbs celebrates the ‘tender candour’ of one of the greatest artists of the age of reason, writes Andrew Wilton.