Search results for: small wonders

Four stained-glass panels from a group of eight depicting scenes from the life of John the Baptist, made in Rouen in c. 1510 and installed in the south wall of the Burrell Collection, Glasgow.

Will the new Burrell Collection give Glasgow global reach?

After six years of work, the city’s most singular museum is reopening. But while it is once again filled with wonders, there are also questions to be answered

23 Mar 2022
Unbaled Truck (2021), Charles Ray.

Charles Ray and the art of keeping body and soul together

The sculptor may work with many different materials but the main ingredient in his art, he says, is time

28 Feb 2022
Watercolor. No. 5 (1942), Raymond Jonson. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento.

The artists who wanted to rise above it all

The Transcendental Painting Group in New Mexico was sidelined for its esoteric beliefs, but its members are slowly entering the mainstream

20 Nov 2021
A giant amethyst geode from Uruguay, installed in the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Jewel identity – what can we glean from gems and minerals in museums?

In museums, minerals are both everyday matter and also objects of scientific interest – but they carry more intangible meanings too

18 Nov 2021
Basel old town.

My cultural city – Basel’s captivating contrasts, with Josef Helfenstein

The director of the Kunstmuseum Basel picks out his cultural highlights from a city in which vibrant traditions meet cosmopolitan flair

2 Aug 2021

Picking up the tabby – the T.S. Eliot estate helps out the Brontë Parsonage Museum

The T.S. Eliot estate has donated £20,000 to help keep the Brontë Parsonage Museum open. Rakewell wonders what the Brontë sisters would have made of ‘Cats’

11 Sep 2020
Visitors to the Petit Musée de la Récade inside the Centre for Arts and Culture in Cotonou, Benin, on 17 January 2020.

Private enterprise – the individuals who are taking restitution into their own hands

While museums deliberate about returning objects that were taken from their places of origin without consent, it is easier for individuals to act

1 Aug 2020
Installation view of ‘The Ecstatic Eye: Sergei Eisenstein, a filmmaker at the crossroads of the arts’ at the Pompidou-Metz in September 2019.

At the movies, in the museum

What does it mean to make cinema – and film directors in particular – the subject of museum exhibitions?

11 Jul 2020
Lee Miller, photographed in Egypt in 1939 by Roland Penrose (detail).

Guests and gadgets – in the kitchen with Lee Miller

Lee Miller’s last great reinvention is also her least well known – as an accomplished and authoritative cook at her East Sussex farmhouse

1 Jun 2020

School of rock – inside the new-look Aberdeen Art Gallery

After a £35m renovation and expansion, the granite city can finally display its collections in the manner they deserve

18 Dec 2019
Madonna at the Fountain (detail; 1439), Jan van Eyck.

Van Eyck does the best he can in Vienna

A focused display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum brings the painter’s ingenuity to the fore

28 Aug 2019
The Gruuthusemuseum in Bruges (pre-2014).

A history of Bruges in 20,000 objects

The gothic heart of Bruges now beats a little faster at the renovated Gruuthusemuseum

19 Aug 2019
Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 (1890), Paul Signac. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Félix Fénéon – critic, collector, and champion of African art

The Parisian critic may have been an enigma who stayed out of sight – but he introduced African art to the French avant-garde

14 Aug 2019
Ash Dome (1977–ongoing), David Nash.

‘Wood suits me, I’m a Saxon!’ – an interview with David Nash

The British sculptor has spent decades producing work from his sylvan surroundings. He discusses how it all began

3 Aug 2019
Aquamanile in the form of Aristotle and Phyllis, late 14th century/15th century, South Netherlandish, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

From infant prodigy to infatuated old man – the many guises of Merlin

The mythical figure has taken many forms over the centuries, some more dignified than others

22 Jun 2019

Can reconstructing historic collections give us the wrong idea about the past?

Reuniting objects that belonged to important collectors can be a visual treat, but there are some intellectual traps to be avoided

30 May 2019
Frontispiece and title page to Christina Rossetti, 'Goblin Market and Other Poems (1863), after Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Christina Rossetti among the Pre-Raphaelites

The Brotherhood loomed large in the poet’s life, but she was careful to carve out her own creative space

4 Feb 2019
Laus Veneris (1873–78), Edward Burne-Jones.

Understanding the enigma of Edward Burne-Jones

The Victorian artist’s otherworldly visions have long been misunderstood

17 Nov 2018
'The List', before its defacement. Credit: Liverpool Biennial/Mark McNulty.

The destruction of The List at the Liverpool Biennial is deeply troubling

The List, which documents the thousands of people who have died trying to reach Europe, was torn down from hoardings in Liverpool

7 Aug 2018
Installation view of Mark Dion's 'The Library for the Birds of London' (2018) at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2018, Photo: © Jeff Spicer/PA Wire

‘There are no spectators, only participants’

Mark Dion’s playful installations at the Whitechapel Gallery turn viewers into voyeurs

22 Feb 2018
General View of Inner Geumgang, (detail) (mid 19th century) Sin Hakgwon.

A mystical Korean mountain comes to the Met

The Diamond Mountains have inspired Korean artists for centuries – and some of its best depictions are coming to New York

29 Jan 2018
Moses Brought Before Pharoah's Daughter, , (1746), William Hogarth, The Foundling Museum

Hogarth’s paintings fail to go the whole hog

William Hogarth’s paintings are nowhere near as ‘Hogarthian’ as his scathing, scurrilous prints

1 Apr 2017

Tristram Hunt: Why the British Ceramics Biennial belongs in Stoke

The Staffordshire Potteries continue to play a leading role in developing the UK’s ceramics industry

13 Jan 2017

Dutch prints, De Stijl, and David Hockney

Hercules Segers heads for the USA, Giacometti goes to Doha, David Hockney turns 80 in style, and more

4 Jan 2017