Will Martin is a designer who lives and works in London

Tourist for a day – who’s watching who at London Zoo?

The Regent’s Park attraction offers plenty of opportunities for people-watching when the animals decide to make themselves scarce

15 Sep 2023

The seaside gallery that aims to be more than a tourist destination

East Quay is an arts centre breathing new life into the Somerset town of Watchet and it has a real sense of social purpose

16 Jun 2023

Will this year’s Serpentine Pavilion really get people talking?

Lina Ghotmeh’s structure presents Londoners with the terrifying prospect of interacting with strangers

9 Jun 2023
Photo: Yu Yigang; courtesy the Gilbert & George Centre; © Gilbert & George

Could Gilbert & George keep going forever?

The self-styled ‘living sculptures’ have long been an east London fixture – and they’ve just opened a new centre in a bid to stick around even after they’re gone

12 Apr 2023

What should a well-dressed Morris dancer wear?

British folk rituals have often required the wearing of outlandish outfits, some of which have remained unchanged for centuries

28 Mar 2023
caricature of the Psychical Society’s annual dance by Heath Robinson

Harmless fun – the crafty cartoons of Heath Robinson

More than a century later, the English cartoonist’s ingenious drawings can still tickle the imaginations of modern audiences

19 Aug 2022
Jerusalem, plate 100 (1804–20), William Blake.

Take a trip to the new new Jerusalem

Stephen Ellcock and Mat Osman try to bring visions of Albion up to date in their book ‘England on Fire’

10 Jul 2022
The statue of Christopher Columbus outside Sefton Park Palm House, redressed by the fashion designer Taya Hughes.

All dressed up and nowhere to go – the art of sprucing up public statues

There’s more than one way to knock a figure off its pedestal, as a documentary about dressing up public monuments in Liverpool shows

21 Oct 2021
‘See London By Bus’ (1963) for London Transport and ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ (1963) for the Central Office of Information.

The man who designed modern Britain

Tom Eckersley’s posters are rightfully regarded as masterpieces – partly because he worked with clients who were also first-rate

16 Jul 2021
Six pack: the contestants in Great British Photography Challenge.

Rankin’s Great British Photography Challenge is too polite for its own good

The TV competition series is billed as a ‘masterclass’ – and none of the contestants will be booted off until the finale. Where’s the fun in that?

3 Jun 2021

How to turn your home into a DIY art gallery

Will Martin steps away from his screen and takes his cues from some of the world’s leading contemporary artists

9 Mar 2021
Ralph Steadman goes gonzo? Photo: Rikard Österlund, www.rikard.co.uk

Ralph Steadman fully deserves his place in the history of art

In his skewering of authority figures, Ralph Steadman bears comparison with some of the great artists of modern times

25 Jan 2021
Jan Six XI in front of Rembrandt’s ‘Portrait of a Young Gentleman’ (1635) in ‘My Rembrandt’. Courtesy Dogwoof.

How to own a Rembrandt

An engaging documentary profiles the collectors who possess – or would like to possess – paintings by the Dutch master

14 Aug 2020
Milton Glaser. Photo: Maria Spann

I ♥ Milton Glaser – a tribute in three designs

Remembering the graphic designer, who has died at the age of 91, through three of his most memorable designs

29 Jun 2020
Grayson Perry, courtesy Channel 4

Grayson Perry becomes the nation’s art teacher

The artist’s encouraging approach shows a nation in lockdown that technique isn’t everything

4 May 2020
Paul Klee in his atelier at the Bauhaus Weimar, 1923 (photo by Felix Klee). Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern; © Klee-Nachlassverwaltung, Hinterkappelen

Feat of Klee – how the Swiss-born artist saw comic potential in dark times

The final years of Paul Klee’s life coincided with the rise of Nazism – but the painter deployed his taste for humour and satire to the last

23 Mar 2020
George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, a detail of the Sunday page from 6 March 1938

George Herriman’s Krazy Kat – revisiting an abstruse but charming comic strip

The story of a simple-minded cat and his animal neighbours was never widely popular – but it counted E.E. Cummings and De Kooning among its fans

11 Dec 2019
OSPAAAL poster (detail; 1969), Alfredo Rostgaard.

Public relations – solidarity posters from Castro’s Cuba

The 1960s and ’70s were a golden age for Cuban artists who designed striking graphics for liberation movements across the world

15 Oct 2019
Keith Haring with one of his drawing series, photographed in January 1982 by Joseph Szkodzinski.

Street-smart – how Keith Haring took art out of the gallery

From subway drawings to T-shirt designs, the artist was determined to make his work accessible to all

19 Jul 2019
Metropolis (1949), Tezuka Osamu.

Lost without words – Manga at the British Museum, reviewed

Despite its international popularity, the Japanese art form cannot be understood through images alone

4 Jun 2019
Back cover for ’The Portable Hairy Who!’ (1966), Karl Wirsum.

Cartoons and camaraderie – the Chicago Imagists, reviewed

In the 1960s and ’70s Chicago was the home of a movement that gleefully broke all the rules of good taste

27 Apr 2019
Bitter Campari (1960s), Franz Marangolo.

How Campari built its brand

An exhibition tracing the advertising history of the Italian liqueur reflects the changing tastes of the 20th century

16 Aug 2018
Serpentine Pavilion 2018, designed by Frida Escobedo, Serpentine Gallery, London. Photography © 2018 Iwan Baan; © Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura

This year’s Serpentine Pavilion is a more serious affair than usual

Frida Escobedo has created a surprisingly sombre structure for this year’s temporary pavilion

22 Jun 2018
From the series In Search of Frankenstein by Chloe Dewe Mathews, photo: © Chloe Dewe Mathews

Chloe Dewe Mathews looks beneath the surface

The photographer’s austere images hint at natural disasters, nuclear horrors, and man-made monsters

3 May 2018