EDITORIAL

Meditations for Lent

Can museums promote greater understanding between faiths when by their very definition they separate art from the religious cultures that created it?

CONTEMPORARY ART

Selling candy to the masses

Last year Jeff Koons became the world’s most expensive living artist. He talks to Martin Gayford about sex, pleasure, the need for self-acceptance – and an astonishing installation destined for Los Angeles.

ARCHITECTURE

Looking after Liverpool

Liverpool is the new European capital of culture – a title it merits only because of the people who fought against its destructive redevelopment after the war. 

Market Review

Paintings with ‘wall power’ triumphed in Old Masters week in New York and a significant corporate collection went to the block in London.

Asian Art Market

Launched by the International Asian Art Fair, New York's Aisa Week offers an extraordinary wealth of shows and auction sales, writes Susan Moore.

Collector's Focus

Collectors attracted to the modernity and fine craftsmanship of the best Biedermeier pieces will find that prices are teptingly modest, writes Claudia Herstatt.

Art Business

How do you insure a work that might – thanks to what it’s made of – melt, disintegrate, or be eaten?

Around the Galleries

Unusual Dutch art and rare Chinese sculpture are on offer in Maastricht’s galleries this month.

All the arts & every pleasure

The celebrated Cuban-born art historian, collector and author looks back over his 50-year exile in Italy, recalls the men who influenced him, and reflects on the art world today. Photographs by Derry Moore.

Putting art on the table

Suzanne and Norman Cohn’s passion for commissioning contemporary crafts has led to their creatively staged dinner parties, where guests enjoy not only exquisite food but also elaborate ‘table art’. Louise Nicholson was invited to join them for an evening. Photography by LaNola Stone.

The master of Old Masters

The doyen of London’s Old Master dealers and a mainstay of Maastricht, Johnny Van Haeften talks about the state of the trade. Portraits by Derry Moore.

The finest the world can offer

The success of Maastricht’s European Fine Art Fair is in large part thanks to the commitment and energy of the select group of dealers who serve as the fair’s trustees and executive committee members. Isabel Andrews and Annie Blinkhorn talked to them about the reasons for the fair’s pre-eminence, and asked them to recall highlights from its history.

Maastricht’s sculpture highlights fair

This month visitors to Maastricht have the bonus of the world’s only specialist sculpture fair. Now in its second year, its offerings range from the ancient world to contemporary art, writes Isabel Andrews.

Justice & Mercy

The identity of the patron portrayed in this celebrated masterpiece continues to elude scholars. Is he a crusader, a devotee of the Sacred Heart, or even Van Eyck himself? Peter Heath suggests that the triptych’s little-noticed emphasis on justice is a major clue.

Art Nouveau at Sèvres

In the early 1900s, American writers and designers took a close interest in the remarkable art-nouveau designs that were being produced at Sèvres. Gabriel P. Weisberg explores the impact of the firm’s methods and achievements on American crafts.

Old friends in fresh company

The opening of the Henry J. Heinz II Galleries has allowed the Metropolitan Museum to display virtually its entire holdings of 19th- and early-20th-century European paintings. As a result, writes Nancy Ireson, the collection’s celebrated masterpieces are shown in revealing new contexts, and a familiar narrative is subtly but firmly readjusted.

Drawings in Dresden

Carmen C. Bambach continues her account of recent major discoveries in the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden with a discussion of some remarkable drawings by early-16th-century central Italian artists.

An Islamic Symphony

Abu Dhabi is hosting the most comprehensive exhibition of Islamic art ever staged in the Middle East. It is drawn solely from the great collection of David Khalili, who explains to Susan Moore how it has been put together like a piece of music. Portraits by Stephen Colover.

The most arrogant artist in France

The impressive retrospective that has just transferred from Paris to New York presents Gustave Courbet in all his guises, from self-assertive hero and suffering martyr to stylish dandy, writes Jörg Zutter.

Essence of the sublime

Once considered the lowliest of genres, landscape, in the hands of Nicolas Poussin, achieved emotion, narrative power and, above all, multiplicity of meanings, writes Timothy J. Standring.

Supreme storytellers

To mark the publication of Christopher White’s catalogue of the Queen’s later Flemish pictures, the Royal Collection has staged a splendid exhibition of selected masterpieces, says David Howarth.

A skilful charmer

The first exhibition on Karel du Jardin reveals a versatile painter with a taste for the good life, writes Jonathan Lopez.

Leighton’s art therapy

Seize your last chance to see a touring exhibition of Lord Leighton’s ravishing drawings, writes Simon Poë.

Golden trophies

The Metropolitan Museum’s magnificent catalogue of its Dutch paintings reveals how this great collection was shaped by the tastes of America’s Gilded Age plutocrats, writes Christopher Brown.

In the age of duchesses

Clare Finn applauds the latest volume in John Richardson’s great biography of Picasso.