CONTEMPORARY ART

Our age of pilgrimage

Retrospectives for the Chapman brothers and Gilbert & George pose the question of how two people can be a single artist.

ARCHITECTURE

Can buildings shape politics?

Admirers of the scottish parliament’s building claim that it symbolises a national form of democracy – but history teaches otherwise.

Antonello’s Lost ‘St Augustine’ rediscovered

Joanne Wright reveals a major discovery: an altarpiece panel by Antonello da Messina, depicting St Augustine. Now in a private collection, it was formerly known only from a photograph owned by Bernard Berenson.

Lesser Gods

Pontormo’s fluid mind and engaging humour are revealed in two newly discovered drawings for decorative schemes commissioned by the Medici. In the first instalment of a two-part article, Larry J. Feinberg discusses his fresco in the villa at Poggio a Caiano.

‘The very greatest building that was never built’

In 1931 Lutyens commissioned a monumental model of his design for Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, the greatest unbuilt masterpiece of 20th-century British architecture. After 13 years in restoration, the model goes on show this month in an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery. Julian Treuherz describes its remarkable history.

Terrible times, good times

In 1965 Rose Phipps married Roger Hilton and moved into his cottage in Botallack, Cornwall. Ruth Guilding describes their marriage, 10 stormy and ultimately tragic years in which both created remarkable, vibrant work.

How to cultivate the art of friendship

The celebrated architect Sir Colin St John Wilson talks to Peyton Skipwith about the close friendships with artists that lie behind the great collection he has given to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. Portrait by Derry Moore.

Acquisition of the month

This striking print, one of four that comprise Hodgkin’s 1995 Venetian Views series, is a significant acquisition for the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. Given by the Israel family in June 2006, it brings the Center’s collection of Hodgkin prints – which previously numbered seven – right up to date, and also dovetails with a forthcoming exhibition there, ‘Howard Hodgkin: Painting’ (1 February-1 April).