When Miriam Margolyes met Augustus John
The actor offered her services as a life model to the painter when she was 19. One can only wonder that she got away so lightly
Art Basel is back in town – here’s what not to miss at the fair
Say it quietly, but this year’s edition of the contemporary art fair is shaping up to look refreshingly normal
The Candyman is back – and this time he’s haunting the art world
The Chicago art scene turns out to be a suitably chilling setting for Nia DaCosta’s sequel to the cult horror film
‘Jazz to me is like oxygen’ – an interview with Sam Nhlengethwa
The South African painter and collage artist discusses his enduring passion for jazz music
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The Romantics who revolutionised how we think about the past
Rosemary Hill’s nimble survey shows how 19th-century antiquarians paved the way for modern historians
The mystery of the real-life Maltese Falcon
The film noir starring Humphrey Bogart is back in cinemas – but the confusion over what happened to the statuettes of the falcon remains to be cleared up
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Photo realism – an interview with Alfredo Jaar
The Chilean-born artist talks about his ambivalent attitude towards photography and his utopian feelings about art
The joyful art of Julio Le Parc
The Argentinian-born artist, now in his tenth decade, reflects on a life devoted to trying new things
September 2021
• An interview with Sheila Hicks
• The Phillips Collection at 100
• At the restored Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin
• Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Plus: the art world’s sense-of-humour failure, a preview of TEFAF Online, the Transcendental Painting Group in New Mexico, Gustave Moreau at Waddesdon, and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus
The week in art news – Nadine Dorries appointed UK culture secretary
Plus: Christophe Leribault appointed director of the Musée d’Orsay; and more stories
‘For the full Indiana Jones experience, it is best approached on horseback’
The spectacular cave monastery of Sabereebi in Georgia is full of frescoes as stunning as their rocky setting
Sting in the tale – how Gustave Moreau added bite to La Fontaine’s fables
Rarely exhibited since their creation, the intense, jewel-like watercolours of the French symbolist make for exhilarating viewing
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The British painting scene is a free-for-all these days – and that’s no bad thing
The Hayward’s survey of contemporary painting proves that the medium is thriving – with the figurative artists perhaps edging that little bit ahead
Admissible evidence – museum directors have their say on vaccine passports
Museum directors in France and Italy seem to agree that requiring proof of vaccination is preferable to being shut – although not everyone is on board
In the studio with… Sarah Staton
With prehistoric carvings and stills from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ on the walls, the artist’s studio is a mix of the past and yesterday’s vision of the future
Supporting cast – Andrew Lloyd Webber does up Drury Lane with a few of his favourite things
The musical impresario has found a role for his collection of beloved Pre-Raphaelites at the newly restored Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Book keeping: the bookplates that are artworks in their own right
With their miniature artistry and enigmatic personal histories, these striking prints are often more enticing than the volumes they’re found in
The Martian landscape is magical but mundane – though it would be a mistake to start taking it for granted
Mars has never seemed closer, with rovers spamming us with photos from its surface
Pulling power – the murky magic of magnet fishing
It’s the aquatic cousin to metal detecting – and an increasing number of devotees are casting off into rivers and canals in search of trash and treasure
The path to self-improvement, according to Marina Abramovic
The artist has partnered up with WeTransfer to create a digital version of the Abramovic Method, a series of exercises that will test your patience to its limit
Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything
The Japanese master’s ambitious – and abandoned – project to depict all the known universe has its first outing at the British Museum
André Kertész: Postcards from Paris
The photographer’s early experiments with cartes postales are on view at the Art Institute of Chicago
Gold of the Great Steppe
The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge hosts a dazzling display of ancient treasures, recently unearthed in Kazakhstan
Cinema at Last! Arts, Images and Entertainment in France, 1833–1907
The Musée d’Orsay puts on a show exploring how early cinema was born of the 19th-century passion for spectacle
Wong Kar-Wai gets nostalgic
The director’s sale of unseen footage from ‘In the Mood for Love’ reminds us that the Hong Kong of his films is fast disappearing