The Captain and The Mate (2017–18), Lubaina Himid.

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

17 Sep 2021
A view of Tate Modern, London, in March 2020.

Programme notes – Museums in Quarantine on BBC4, reviewed

Alistair Sooke and Simon Schama take on tour-guide duties in a series of new 30-minute films. But how satisfying can the Tate on the telly really be?

30 Apr 2020
Terraza Alta III (2018), Abel Rodríguez.

A visual journey through the Amazon rainforest

Displaced from his home in the Colombian Amazon, Abel Rodríguez draws on his memories to document its flora and fauna

24 Mar 2020
The Supper at Emmaus (detail; c. 1628), Rembrandt van Rijn.

How Rembrandt made great strides in his home town

Child prodigy he was not – but works from the painter’s youth in Leiden show that he soon made up for lost time

14 Nov 2019

Face masks – the enigmatic art of Helene Schjerfbeck

The first UK show dedicated to the Finnish painter reveals an artist fascinated with questions of image and identity

25 Jul 2019
(c. 1842), J.M.W. Turner.

In his element – J.M.W. Turner in Lucerne

The British artist returned time and again to the Swiss city, recording majestic Alpine landscapes that still take travellers’ breath away

21 May 2019
The Mango Trees, Martinique (detail; 1887), Paul Gauguin.

How four months in Martinique helped Gauguin make his name

The artist saw himself as an exotic outsider, and his voyage to the Caribbean in 1887 as a transformative experience

10 Oct 2018
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, Mary Cassatt

How Mary Cassatt created a school of her own

The American Impressionist’s singular body of work is as hard to classify as ever

7 May 2018
Mme Monet et son fils Jean dans le jardin à Argenteuil

Reconstructing Monet’s private collection

Monet’s hidden art collection goes public in an ambitious exhibition at the Musée Marmottan

22 Nov 2017
Portrait of Madame Marie Hubbard (1874), Berthe Morisot (1841–95) © Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen.

The Danish collector with a passion for French painting

Wilhelm Hansen amassed his impressive collection, now showing at the Musée Jacquemart-André, in only two years

17 Nov 2017
Botanical models from 'Object Lessons' at Manchester Museum

Paper plants and wax peaches at the Manchester Museum

The scientific teaching models in George Loudon’s collection are as beautiful as they are fascinating

7 Jun 2017

Pissarro was the unifying force behind Impressionism

This overdue survey gives some sense of Pissarro’s extraordinary range

18 Apr 2017
Mont Blanc Seen from La Faucille, Storm Effect (begun 1834), Théodore Rousseau. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Théodore Rousseau’s winning formula? ‘Diabolical cunning’ and lashings of sauce

‘A method matters little,’ Rousseau maintained, ‘one tries everything’. See the full span of his dizzyingly diverse practice in Copenhagen this winter

16 Nov 2016

‘I buy! I buy! I can’t stop myself’: Artists as collectors at the National Gallery

Artist collectors, it emerges, are driven by a mix of motives from compulsion to emulation

2 Aug 2016
Switch House, Tate Modern

Why has Tate consigned painting to history?

Painting isn’t dead, but it has been prematurely buried in Tate Modern’s Boiler House

20 Jun 2016
Frozen Wave (The Conservation of Energy

When did the Sublime become an extended environmental guilt-trip?

The word has become a catchall term for environmentally-conscious art. It’s more specific than that

23 Apr 2016

Rodin moves back to Paris

The sculptor would have approved of the Musée Rodin’s sensitive refurbishment

5 Jan 2016

Giacometti: Rebel artist and lifelong mother’s boy

‘It is impossible to paint a portrait’, claimed Giacometti, but that didn’t stop him trying whenever he went home to his family

3 Nov 2015

Damien Hirst seeks redemption

The bad boy of Britart opens his new gallery with a show devoted to abstract painter John Hoyland. Is he trying to atone for his artistic sins?

2 Oct 2015
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn: Hopeless case or saviour of the arts?

The MP for North Islington is that rare thing at Westminster, a politician who is actually interested in the arts

3 Sep 2015

Verbal Assault: ‘All The World’s Futures’ Reviewed

A joyless preference for the verbal over the visual at the Venice Biennale

15 May 2015

Letter from the Fondation Custodia, Paris

The Fondation Custodia in Paris steps into the spotlight

27 Apr 2015