Maggie Gray is a writer, editor and art historian based in London.

Women artists make a radical mess at the Whitechapel Gallery

A crowded display sees some 150 works of Abstract Expressionism clamouring for attention, but perhaps this is the point

16 Feb 2023

The Lithuanian painter who thought art could move heaven and earth

A survey of paintings by M.K. Čiurlionis at the Dulwich makes plain why the artist is heralded in his home country as a visionary

27 Oct 2022
Morning Glory (detail), from Some Japanese Flowers (c. 1894), Kazumasa Ogawa.

‘This is a wildflower meadow of an exhibition’ – a paean to plants at Dulwich Picture Gallery

A survey of 180 years of botanical photography proves that the art form continues to flourish

5 Jan 2021
Installation view of Here (2013) by Thomson & Craighead on Greenwich Peninsula.

Lessons from a lonely city – walking through lockdown London has been a revelation

We’re all flâneurs now. So what would help us get even more out of walking through our local areas?

4 Jun 2020
Tricolour Wings (1932; detail), Tullio Crali

Tullio Crali’s flights into the future

The Estorick Collection presents a rare exhibition of works by the Italian painter with a passion for planes

31 Jan 2020
Lagoon (2015–17), Nick Goss.

Flooded streets and cars at sea – the watery world of Nick Goss

Goss experiments with traditional painting techniques to depict scenes of everyday life with a dreamlike twist

5 Apr 2019
January, Yellow and Black (1957), Paul Feiler.

The modern mysticism of Paul Feiler

An exhibition in Hastings makes clear the abrupt shift in the St Ives artist’s style of painting

7 Jul 2018
Loe Bar (1962), Peter Lanyon.

‘A total immersion within the landscape’

From Cornish coves to remote towns in Italy, a sense of place is central to the paintings of Peter Lanyon

9 Mar 2018
Installation view of 'A World of Fragile Parts', Venice Architecture Biennale 2016

Why it’s time to talk seriously about digital reproductions

The V&A has launched a new declaration on the reproduction of art and heritage in a digital age

15 Dec 2017
Take Five (2006), Tom Lamb

Digging down into mining art in County Durham

A new art gallery in Bishop Auckland celebrates the mining art of northern England

20 Oct 2017
Tate St Ives by Jamie Fobert Architects. Photo © Hufton+Crow

The international mission of Tate’s Cornish outpost

Tate St Ives reopens to the public this autumn following the completion of a major expansion

13 Oct 2017
Encyclopedic Geodes (2017), Damián Ortega. © Damián Ortega. Photo © White Cube (Ben Westoby)

Mashed-up encyclopaedias and dismantled watches

Plus: exhibitions of William Turnbull, Gino De Dominicis, and Tim Head

1 Oct 2017
Installation view of 'Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Bronzes from the 1980s' at Michael Werner Gallery, London, photo: courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, London and New York

Per Kirkeby’s triumph of form over substance

The Danish artist clearly takes great delight in the physical properties of paint (and bronze, too)

18 Aug 2017
33 (2017), Mario Santizo at the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. Photo courtesy the author

Collaboration and conversation in Ljubljana

A shared belief in the democratic possibilities of print makes for an optimistic biennial

20 Jul 2017
Nymph Removing a Thorn from a Greyhound’s Foot (1848), Richard James Wyatt. Temple Newsam, Leeds. Photo: Art UK / Leeds Museums and Galleries

Public sculpture in the UK is about to become more visible

Art UK, which last year launched a digital catalogue of every oil painting in public ownership, has embarked on an equivalent project for sculpture

22 Jun 2017

‘Everything I know comes from painting’

The possibilities of paint are inexhaustible, says the German artist Markus Lüpertz

20 May 2017
'TEFAF Curated - La Grande Horizontale' at TEFAF Maastricht 2017. Photo: Harry Heuts

The art of lying down

Penelope Curtis discusses this year’s TEFAF Curated display, ‘La Grande Horizontale’, which explores the theme of the recumbent figure in art

13 Mar 2017
Installation view, showing Volute IV and Volute V by Paul de Monchaux, at Megan Piper, London, 2016

Art and humanity in the work of Paul de Monchaux

The sculptor discusses abstraction, music, architecture, carving kerb stones, and the ‘common enterprise’ at the heart of it all

9 Jan 2017
British Sopwith Camels Leaving Their Aerodrome on Patrol over the Asiago Plateau, (1918), Sydney Carline.

War in the sunshine, abstraction in India, and art in a prison

The art of aerial warfare is explored at the Estorick Collection; Claude Cahun and Gillian Wearing make a formidable pair at the NPG; and Edmund Clark heads to prison for art

28 Dec 2016
Rauschenberg photographed in Captiva, Florida, 1978. Photo: Attributed to Billy Klüver; courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Robert Rauschenberg’s escape to Florida

In 1970 Rauschenberg left New York City for an island off the Florida coast. His retreat from the city transformed his art, and his legacy

30 Nov 2016

Picasso satirised his sitters – and art itself

The satirical intent behind many of Picasso’s portraits is striking in this exhibition

8 Nov 2016
(2016), Neo Rauch. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London

Neo Rauch and the carnival of European art

The German artist’s work, finally on show in London, is an uprooted reunion of everything strange in the supposedly familiar tale of western art history

14 Oct 2016
Simon Starling. Photo: Mikel Patrick Avery

‘It’s really about a collapse of time.’ Simon Starling on his latest project

‘At Twilight’ includes references to Japanese Noh theatre, western modernism, contemporary stagecraft and Eeyore…

26 Sep 2016
Ttéia 1C (detail; 2001/2016), Lygia Pape. © Projeto Lygia Pape; courtesy Projeto Lygia Pape and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Paula Pape

Lygia Pape’s fragile threads

Plus: The final painting of Francis West; Yinka Shonibare without his trademark fabric; and Paula Rego’s first tapestry

24 Sep 2016