Features

Portrait of Two Girls as the Saints Agnes and Dorothy, (n.d.) Michaelina Wautier. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

‘Doing justice to an artist no one knows is quite an undertaking’

The first exhibition devoted to the Flemish painter Michaelina Wautier has been a 25-year-long labour of love for its curator

Enclosure C at Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, Photo: Vincent J. Musi/National Geographic Creative

The site of the earliest known temple on earth continues to keep its secrets

The new museum at Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey is a welcome addition, but it can’t explain everything

2 Jul 2018
The Procuress, (1625), Gerrit van Honthorst, Centraal Museum, Utrecht

The local museum with a world-class collection of Old Masters

The Centraal Museum is raising its profile with a show devoted to the Utrecht Caravaggisti – but it remains firmly grounded in the city

30 Jun 2018
Lake Geneva with symmetrical reflections, Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler’s symbolic hold on the Swiss imagination

Geneva’s museums are using the centenary of the artist’s death as an opportunity to rethink how they display their collections

23 Jun 2018
Irving and Lucy Sandler. Image courtesy Lauren Grosskopf

Remembering Irving Sandler, the ‘sweeper-up after artists’

The critic, who has died at the age of 92, will be remembered as someone who wanted to be in the thick of it

14 Jun 2018
Photograph by Yevgen Nikiforov, exhibited at Kyiv Art Week

How the city of Kyiv is reckoning with its Soviet past

This year’s Kyiv Art Week celebrated a creative renaissance in the Ukrainian capital, but difficult questions about the city’s architectural heritage remain

11 Jun 2018
After Le Lorrain (detail; 2018). Michael Eden.

French porcelain meets 3D printing at Waddesdon

Michael Eden’s brightly coloured creations offer a modern update on the manor’s historic collection

7 Jun 2018
Head of Perseus, Odilon Redon

Acquisitions of the month: May 2018

Two Attic vases once owned by Lucien Bonaparte enter the Louvre, while the Getty acquires its first Rodin bronze

6 Jun 2018
Design by Owen Jones, based on a ceramic dish, an alternative design for Plate 7 in ‘Examples of Chinese Ornament selected from objects in the South Kensington museum and other collections’ (1867)

A set of original drawings by Owen Jones have returned to the museum that inspired them

The designer’s interpretations of Chinese decorative art can now be found in the V&A

Female tumbler, c. 1800–30, unknown artist, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The paintings that turned Persian art on its head in the 19th century

The arts in Qajar Iran acknowledged previous traditions while reflecting a rapidly changing world

2 Jun 2018
Illustration by Tom Lobo Brennan

How conservators are fighting the battle against built-in obsolescence

It’s never too early to begin preserving time-based media art

24 May 2018
Auguste Rodin photographed in his Museum of Antiquities, c. 1908–12, by Albert Harlingue, courtesy British Museum, London

Rodin’s complicated relationship with classical art

Rodin’s relationship with the Parthenon sculptures – and classical art in general – was far from straightforward

22 May 2018

Seats of power through the centuries

Throne chairs have acted as seats of power for centuries – but their form and meaning has evolved

19 May 2018
Alfred Drury’s statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds, first President of the Royal Academy, in front of the façade of Burlington House.

‘The Royal Academy remains a great asset that must never be squandered’

Norman Rosenthal, Rebecca Salter, Nick Goss and Sarah Turner share their views on what sets the RA apart

15 May 2018
The new Wohl Entrance Hall.

The making of the new Royal Academy – an insider’s view

The RA’s Secretary and Chief Executive traces the history of the institution’s redevelopment

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018).

A tribute to Per Kirkeby (1938–2018)

The Danish artist and former geologist has died at the age of 79

14 May 2018

Patronage, prizes and Mad King Ludwig pens

The luxury brand Montblanc recently launched the 27th edition of its cultural patronage awards

14 May 2018
Still Life with Bottles and a Cowrie Shell, Vincent Van Gogh

Acquisitions of the month: April 2018

Chris Ofili’s notorious ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ goes to MoMA and the Baltimore Museum of Art updates its contemporary art collection

9 May 2018
Encampment Supreme (2015), Paul Chaney.

The British artists going back to the land

How artists over the past century have tried to preserve, renew and reinvent the English countryside

Mada'in Saleh (Hegra), Jabal al-Khraymat. The tomb on the far left belonged to Amat and her daughters.

The kingdom built on frankincense and myrrh

A $20 billion project to transform Saudi Arabia’s al-Ula region has brought attention to a little-known ancient site

25 Apr 2018
Shallow bowl depicting the muse Clio (c. 1535/40), workshop of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, Gubbio, Italy; Clio (Muse of History), (c. 1465), Master of the E-series Tarocchi

‘In the age of print, art became European’

What Renaissance ceramics tell us about the European print culture of the time

23 Apr 2018

Celebrating Romani art and culture at the first Roma Biennale

The first Roma Biennale offered a riot of contemporary Romani art and performance

19 Apr 2018
Gillian Ayres at home in Barnes, London, in 1961.

A tribute to Gillian Ayres (1930–2018)

Ayres has died at the age of 88 after a long, vibrant career as one of Britain’s leading abstract painters

18 Apr 2018
Lion head from the Royal Cemetery of Ur, (c. 2450 BC), Sumerian, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia

Ancient civilisations get a modern makeover at the Penn Museum

The museum’s collection of more than a million artefacts is being redisplayed in a major refurbishment

14 Apr 2018