The Impressionists who put pastel to paper

As an exhibition at the Royal Academy shows, the Impressionists were never more immediate or intimate than in their drawings

12 Feb 2024

Hockney gets personal at the National Portrait Gallery

The artist has turned his attention to the same five sitters time and again across his 60-year career, to touching effect

14 Nov 2023
Self-portrait with mirror (1966), Michael Ayrton. Private collection.

Michael Ayrton was a maker of minotaurs – and is himself a forgotten giant

The British artist’s scope and influence have long been neglected – but at the centenary of his birth, will a pair of exhibitions turn the tide?

9 Jun 2021
Rose Horizontal (2018), Bridget Riley.

Lines of continuity – learning from Bridget Riley’s prints

An expanded catalogue raisonné of the artist’s prints sheds new light on her pioneering approach to colour and composition

11 Nov 2020

Nature boy – how John Nash brought new life to British landscape painting

A new biography reasserts the significance of the self-described ‘artist plantsman’ among his modern British peers

19 Feb 2020
Portrait of Henry Moore with Helmet Head No. 2 (1950) in 1967.

The European armoury that inspired Henry Moore

It was on visits to the Wallace Collection that the sculptor first became fascinated with the form of the helmet

19 Mar 2019
Josef Albers: Life and Work by Charles Darwent

How Josef Albers created the modern art school as we know it

A new biography of the Bauhaus artist and teacher shows that his influence can still be felt today

6 Feb 2019
John Rothenstein book jacket

John Rothenstein’s turbulent time at the Tate

The museum’s fifth director presided over a difficult period of its history, but left it in a better state than he found it

26 Oct 2018
Reclining Nude (1919), Amedeo Modigliani. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Modigliani’s powerfully modern portraits get the attention they deserve

The Tate’s blockbuster exhibition gives Modigliani’s reputation a welcome boost, prioritising his art over biography

6 Feb 2018
Still Life with Seashell on Black Marble (1940), Henri Matisse. Photo © Archives H. Matisse © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2017

The stuff of art: objects from Matisse’s studio

The objects in Matisse’s collection shaped his revolutionary aesthetic, and inspired him to push beyond the boundaries of the European tradition

4 Oct 2017
Flora in Calix Light (1950), David Jones. Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. © the Estate of David Jones

How David Jones resisted the modern world

A new biography reveals an artist who, falling out of step with contemporary life, created an imaginative world of his own through art

12 Jun 2017
Easter Monday (c. 1950), Winifred Nicholson.

Winifred Nicholson and the pleasures of colour

An exhibition on Winifred Nicholson shows why her painting had such an impact on the work of her peers

21 Dec 2016