Rakewell

What Liz Truss could learn from the Bank of England

The out-lettuced PM has little time for culture in her memoir-cum-manifesto – unlike her Establishment enemy, the Bank of England

21 Apr 2024

The basic instincts of Benjamin Franklin

The founding father who was careful to cultivate his public image is played with gusto by Michael Douglas in a new TV biopic

14 Apr 2024

James Cameron’s titanic bid to save the oceans

Can four high-priced works of art help conserve marine life? The Canadian film-maker certainly thinks so

5 Apr 2024

Kim Kardashian’s bad table manners

The reality star may think of herself as a ‘furniture person’, but the Donald Judd Foundation disagrees – and is suing her for allegedly buying fake tables

28 Mar 2024

Peter Blake’s can-do attitude

The godfather of Pop has designed a range of Budweiser cans – and he’s not the only creative type who has taken to drink

22 Mar 2024

Van Gogh’s potatoes are no small fry

The Dutch artist was a dab hand at painting spuds, but why haven’t more artists been inspired by the terrific tuber?

15 Mar 2024

Jane Austen threatens to sully Winchester

A proposed statue of the author has caused a fuss among local residents, but does anyone really like public sculptures anyway?

8 Mar 2024

The V&A enters its Swiftie era

The museum has announced an opening for a Taylor Swift ‘superfan’ – but this bid for commercial appeal doesn’t seem to be reflected by the salary on offer

1 Mar 2024

The Fab Four get the Rashomon treatment

On hearing that Sam Mendes is set to direct four Beatles biopics – one for each band member – your roving reporter wonders if it’s all too much

23 Feb 2024

Elon Musk flies Jeff Koons to the Moon

Jeff Koons launched 125 sculptures into orbit on a SpaceX rocket this week. Perhaps they’ll hang out with the Pop art that went on a lunar holiday in 1969

16 Feb 2024

Amazon gets the art world wrong again

The streamer’s latest romcom, ‘Upgraded’, stretches artistic licence to its limits

9 Feb 2024

All hail Flaco, the owl who rules Manhattan

The Central Park Zoo escapee was born in chains, but everywhere from the Upper West Side to the East Village he is now free

4 Feb 2024

Cindy Sherman gets a makeover for Marc Jacobs

Cindy Sherman stars in the fashion designer’s latest ad campaign – and she’s not the first artist who has modelled in this way

28 Jan 2024

Spiderman swings into action at auction

After the sale of the first The Amazing Spider-Man’ comic for $1.4m, Rakewell suggests that when it comes to the big screen, Marvel should tap into its spidey-sense again

21 Jan 2024

Succession sparks a bidding war

Fancy Kendall’s Zippo, or one of Shiv’s suits? Now’s your chance, with HBO auctioning off the Roy family’s paraphernalia

12 Jan 2024

Are the British Museum and BP made for each other?

As two British multinationals with deep imperial roots and interim CEOs partner for another ten years, perhaps birds of a feather are merely flocking together

5 Jan 2024

A brief guide to duelling versions of The Three Musketeers

Eva Green steals every scene in the new version of Alexandre Dumas’s novel – but the new film is just the latest in a long line of swashbuckling adaptations

17 Dec 2023
Shane MacGowan in 1997. Photo: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images

Shane MacGowan and the most famous shipwreck in art

The Pogues frontman and the Romantic painter are forever linked by a classic album cover – and much more besides

5 Dec 2023

What would Pericles want for the Parthenon marbles?

After a week in which a British prime minister has realised, seemingly for the first time, that Greece would quite like the Parthenon marbles back, it’s worth taking a longer view

3 Dec 2023

Blackpink goes to Buckingham Palace

The K-Pop quartet attended a State Banquet for the South Korean president hosted by the new king – but perhaps its members might take up more permanent residence?

26 Nov 2023

The art of being Barbra

Barbra Streisand’s doorstopper of a memoir suggests that the real love of the star’s life is the painter Modigliani

19 Nov 2023
Nadine Dorries at the Wallace Collection in London

When it comes to culture, the UK has lost the plot – and found Nadine Dorries

Rakewell is delighted to discover that the former culture minister’s memoir contains more than one vague musing about the art of Downing Street

10 Nov 2023

Censorship can be a fiendish business: just ask Joshua Reynolds

Conservation of a painting by the artist has revealed an evil spirit – if only all art censorship were so mild

3 Nov 2023

Is François Pinault slumming it at the Bourse?

The billionaire collector is going for broke with an exhibition of ‘poor art’

27 Oct 2023