To infinity and beyond with Caspar David Friedrich
The high priest of German Romanticism is at his best when practising a minimalism that requires maximum imaginative effort from the viewer
The Frick Collection makes a triumphant return to Fifth Avenue
The jazzy life of Gertrude Abercrombie
Once a central figure in Chicago’s mid-century art and jazz scene, this surrealist painter was long forgotten – until now
In Portugal, a world-class ceramics collection now has a home to match
The ceramics collection of Renato de Albuquerque can now be found a state-of-the-art centre that is also on a mission to educate and entice
Trump issues executive order to remove ‘improper ideology’ from Smithsonian
Plus: Looting at Sudan’s National Museum | South Korean heritage sites threatened by country’s worst wildfires | Christophe Cherix appointed next director of MoMA | and more
Paddington bears the weight of British identity
The national psychodrama sparked by the destruction of a Paddington Bear statue raises a question: when did we start taking fictional characters so seriously?
Advert
Celia Paul faces the ghosts of her past
In recent portraits and seascapes the painter ponders time and memory, and the legacy of Lucian Freud and co.
Four things to see: Royal patronage
The 400th anniversary of Charles I’s ascent to the throne is a reminder that rulers, from the Medicis to the Mughal emperors, have long patronised artists
Advert
In the studio with… Catherine Wagner
The San Francisco-based photographer has moved into a new space, and she’s getting used to a more communal environment – but order is still all-important
In the studio with… Jakkai Siributr
The Thai textile artist prefers silence in his studio so he can listen to his thoughts – which proves tricky when his dogs are hanging around
April 2025
The Frick returns to Fifth Avenue
An interview with Oliver Beer
How the Acropolis became modern
In praise of ‘degenerate’ art
Also: The duchess who scandalised Spain, why the market for women’s art is slowing, Dutch paintings at Apsley House, how Bugatti built a style icon, the sensational designs of Alphonse Mucha, and a preview of Art Dubai; reviews of Gertrude Abercrombie in Pittsburgh, Medardo Rosso in Vienna, and a history of image-eating. Plus: Will Wiles on a French avant-garde portrait with a family connection
The émigrés who made Britain modern – an interview with Owen Hatherley
Owen Hatherley talks to Apollo about his new book, ‘The Alienation Effect’, about the Central European artists and intellectuals who fled fascism in the 1930s and came to Britain
The Argentinian winery where you can see James Turrell at altitude
The treacherous journey to get to Colomé, home to a private art gallery and one of the world’s highest wineries, is well worth the trek
‘Edging into the surreal’ – Alison Watt enters the world of John Soane
At Pitzhanger Manor, eerie paintings by the Scottish artist commune with its architect’s taste for pared-back eccentricity
Advert
Acquisitions of the month: February 2025
Eastern icons for the Louvre and French Old Masters for the Art Institute of Chicago are among the most important works to have entered public collections recently
Tracey Emin’s passion for painting
In a powerful painting acquired by the Yale Center for British Art, the artist grapples with universal themes of love and loss, explains the museum’s director, Martina Droth
Salzburg, a city alive with the Sound of Music
Sixty years after the film’s release, locals are still surprised by visitors re-enacting a few of their favourite things
The brave new world of Brazilian modernism
Artists were just as dedicated to the avant-garde as their peers in architecture and music, but were the results of their efforts as radical?
The Sienese painters who sparked a revolution in European art
The innovations of artists in the first half of the 14th century created new pathways for painting for centuries to come
The painter who poked fun at 18th-century Paris
Working in the new medium of pastels, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour portrayed the elites of his day in a style to suit the hedonism of the age
The uneasy business of being an American artist
Rachel Cohen talks to Apollo about the reissue of ‘A Chance Meeting’, her inventive account of more than a century of artistic endeavour in the United States
Picasso, Miró, Léger and the Many Voices of Modernism
An exhibition in Denmark presents lesser-known modernists alongside the usual 20th-century titans
Giuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots
The largest survey of the Arte Povera artist in the UK encourages us to think differently about the boundary between art and nature
Discovering Dürer
Though most celebrated for his woodcut prints, Albrecht Dürer was also a master engraver, as this free exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum makes clear
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective
A major survey of Asawa’s work in San Francisco covers six-decades and reminds us that there was more to her work than wire sculptures
What would Jane Austen say?
Nothing gets a certain type of viewer more hot under the cravat than anachronisms in period drama – but the best inaccuracies are artistically liberating