CONTEMPORARY ART

Hugging the new

Far from causing shock, Avant-garde artists are now adored by the establishment. is that a triumph, or a sign that their art is a failure?

ARCHITECTURE

A is for Aalto

An Exhibition in London on Alvar Aalto reveals the humane modernity of the finnish architect – but also his weirdness.

FROM GODS TO GROTESQUES

Among the treasures of the Metropolitan’s new Greek and Roman galleries is the finest collection of Hellenistic bronzes in North America. Seán Hemingway introduces a selection of these masterpieces, which have appealed strongly to collectors from ancient times to the present day.

TRIUMPH OF DESIGN

The remarkable variety as well as the quality of modern Scandinavian glass is attracting increasing numbers of collectors. In the first of two articles, Andy McConnell offers a guide to the leading Swedish and Finnish designers and makers, whose work ranks with the finest postwar European design.

Moore’s artist

Michael Hall talks to Derry Moore about a major theme in the photographers’s distinguished career: portraits of artists, collectors and art critics. They begin with Henry Moore and Bill Brandt in the early 1970s and come right up to date with a new study of Grayson Perry, specially commissioned by Apollo.

Save Britain’s gardening heritage

Christopher Woodward, the new director of the Museum of Garden History, London, finds it puzzling that American institutions are often more active than British ones in preserving the archives of Britain’s great garden designers.

Art on a plate

A neglected aspect of Picasso’s work within the decorative arts is a set of silver serving dishes, or compotiers, made for him in the late 1950s by François Victor-Hugo. Clare Finn discusses the circumstances of their creation, the novel technique of their manufacture, and puts their form and decoration into the context of Picasso’s work as a whole.