Matilda Bathurst is a freelance writer on arts and books @MatildaBathurst

The Orange County Museum of Art

The real O.C. now has a museum that provides a world-class welcome

The new Orange County Museum of Art has a stellar collection from California and a glitzy exterior to match

7 Oct 2022

Nikolai Astrup shines outside Norway

The Norwegian painter gets some overdue recognition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

16 Mar 2016

Gertrude Hermes gets a room of her own

The sculptor Gertrude Hermes has often been overshadowed by her contemporaries, but the first major exhibition of her work in 30 years is a chance to see her more clearly

26 Nov 2015

Window-shopping at the V&A

It’s hard to take luxury exhibitions very seriously

29 Apr 2015

The Whitworth reopens

Great art, thoughtful curation and a snazzy café: Manchester’s £15 million redevelopment project is a great success

17 Feb 2015

Go With The Flow: William Morris and Andy Warhol at Modern Art Oxford

All three artists emerge as experts in self-branding. On the whole, I’m sold

9 Dec 2014

The Way of All Flesh: Berlinde de Bruyckere

Can treatment of flesh in sculpture only aspire to a condition of deadness?

2 Dec 2014

Review: Guggenheim Bilbao lets its collection speak for itself

The museum showcases some of its finest works in ‘The Art of Our Time’

27 Oct 2014

Review: Russian Avant-Garde Theatre at the V&A

The modernist designs at the V&A have an air of optimism about them, but we all know how the story ends

20 Oct 2014

Review: ‘Symphony of a Missing Room’ at the Royal Academy

Immersive performance art and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition? Surprisingly, it works…

31 May 2014

Review: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, ‘The Strange City’ (Monumenta 2014)

The Kabakovs’ ‘Strange City’ at the Grand Palais isn’t completely alien

17 May 2014

Review: John Piper at the Bohun Gallery

A small but ambitious exhibition of the British modernist’s varied work has opened in Oxfordshire

6 May 2014

Affected Taste: William Kent at the V&A

How do you like your Georgians? William Kent’s designs come with a liberal coating of gilt

25 Mar 2014

‘Diverse Maniere: Piranesi, Fantasy and Excess’ at Sir John Soane’s Museum

The current Piranesi exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Museum raises interesting questions about original artworks and their reproductions

22 Mar 2014

Art and Life at Kettle’s Yard

‘Art & Life’ is a touring exhibition, but Kettle’s Yard is clearly its spiritual home

27 Feb 2014

Quiet Transformation: ‘A Dialogue with Nature’

The German and British Romantic landscapes at the Courtauld sing rather than shout of a new vision

7 Feb 2014

Arcadia Outlined

‘A World of Private Mystery: John Craxton’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum celebrates the artist’s ‘unfashionably happy’ late paintings

16 Jan 2014

Reflections on Glass

‘White Light/White Heat’ at the Wallace Collection and London College of Fashion reflects on glass as a contemporary medium

7 Dec 2013

Do Come In

‘Immersive’ artwork such as Elmgreen & Dragset’s ‘Tomorrow’ at the V&A is touted as the 21st century’s spin on a gesamtkunstwerk, but has the hyperreal already become familiar?

26 Nov 2013

Only Connect

His work at the Royal Academy strives for poetic significance, but does Bill Woodrow offer anything new?

22 Nov 2013

Calling Time

‘The Show is Over’ at Gagosian Gallery, where painting’s elaborate deferrals of its death-scene extend like a multi-volume suicide note

12 Nov 2013

Romantic Reconstruction

Alan Sorrell’s neo-Romantic work is an antidote to today’s conceptual art, and perfectly suited to Sir John Soane’s Museum

30 Oct 2013

Darkness Visible

‘Paul Klee: Making Visible’ at Tate Modern is rigorous but incurably serious – is it the right setting for such complex and colourful work?

18 Oct 2013

Frida y…

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera make awkward companions at a nonetheless important Paris exhibition

10 Oct 2013