For the gondola builders of Venice, choppy waters lie ahead
Traditional boatyards and boat-building techniques have long been in decline – but the pandemic has only worsened the situation
With its return to Chelsea, Dia is having a New York moment
Dia Art Foundation’s support for ambitious experimental artists is as resolute as ever, its director Jessica Morgan tells Apollo
The cantankerous criticism of Charles Baudelaire
On the bicentenary of the poet’s birth, his art criticism still hums with outrage
As a portrait sitter, Prince Philip was also a spirited sparring partner
In 2006, Jonathan Yeo painted Prince Philip’s portrait – an invigorating if at times nerve-wracking experience
The week in art news – Spain stops a suspected Caravaggio from leaving the country
Plus: French galleries are suing the government to reopen, Egypt moves its royal mummies in a a televised extravaganza, and more stories
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Leonardo, heart-throb of the small screen
Rakewell suspects that Leonardo would have loved the invention of film and TV, but what would he have made of Aidan Turner, aka Ross Poldark, playing him?
The notional gallery? How art museums turned into public palaces
Two new books offer complementary perspectives – the macro and the micro – on the modern museum
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For Lisa Yuskavage, art isn’t about being right or wrong – it’s the freedom to do what you want
She may paint Penthouse pin-ups, but Lisa Yuskavage’s work is far more compassionate than some critics allow – not that she makes art with morality in mind
‘The thing is to be brave’ – Maggi Hambling toughs it out
From that scandalous scallop to her Mary Wollstonecraft monument, Maggi Hambling is no stranger to controversy
April 2021
• Alice Neel’s forthright portraits of her fellow New Yorkers
• The trenchant art criticism of Charles Baudelaire
• Antony Gormley on how sculpture can change the world
• The surreal houses of Edward James
Plus: Dia Art Foundation returns to Chelsea, Eugène Atget’s uncanny photographs of Paris, the future of department stores, the opening of the Frick Madison, and Kaywin Feldman on cultural leadership in the 21st century
America the grave – ‘Grief and Grievance’ at the New Museum, reviewed
An exhibition examining Black experience in America is powerful if piecemeal – and is necessarily exhausting
Parks and recreation: how London grew its green spaces
The pandemic has highlighted the need for urban projects such as the Camden Highline – and London has a long history of transforming unloved sites into havens for city dwellers
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In Egypt, a motorcade of mummies says more about the modern nation than the ancient past
The recent move of the royal mummies in Cairo was a made-for-TV extravaganza
Thoroughly modern murder: how Poirot came to personify art deco
Agatha Christie’s sleuth has been nowhere more at home than in ITV’s interwar locations – their clean lines the perfect match for the punctilious Poirot
Alice Neel, our contemporary
The painter’s urgent, sympathetic portraits of her fellow New Yorkers are exactly what we need in these troubled times
Did somebody say Just Art?
Yes, it’s happened – a leading art collection is now available on a food delivery app
Made You Look – a true crime doc that should terrify art collectors
The knavery and folly of the rarefied art world are writ large in a documentary that picks over the Knoedler forgery scandal
The unruly life of museum postcards
We’re all building miniature museums at home, and postcards of paintings have taken on a life of their own
Matchstick men at the pictures – Mrs Lowry and Son, reviewed
Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave co-star as the artist and his mother in this claustrophobic portrait of domestic dysfunction
American museums should not be selling their art to keep the lights on
Deaccessioning rules for US museums have been relaxed to raise money for collection care – and even the Met may take advantage. It’s a slippery slope, says Thomas P. Campbell
Fleeting – Scents in Colour: virtual see-and-smell tour
What does art smell like? The Mauritshuis’s new fragrance box helps you to sniff out an answer at home
Dawoud Bey: An American Project
A retrospective at the Whitney shows how the photographer has brought marginalised American communities into view
Variations: The Reuse of Models in Paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi
A display of remixes by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi at Cleveland Museum of Art
She-oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism
The National Gallery of Victoria shows how artists took to the outback to reimagine the national landscape en plein air
How to behave in a commercial gallery, if you’ve never dared set foot in one
They may have intimidated you in the past – but you’ll have to wise up to the ways of commercial galleries if you want to see any art in the UK this month