Features

Covered box with scene from The Tale of Genji (c. 1895), Ota Jinnoeimon. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. Photo: © 2022 John Bigelow Taylor

Acquisitions of the Month: June 2022

An outstanding collection of some 900 Japanese cloisonné enamels is among this month’s highlights

30 Jun 2022
Wolf's Cove miniature village

The architect whose greatest achievement was the world’s first miniature village

Wolf’s Cove, the model village in Gloucestershire designed by Charles Paget Wade, is proof of the architect’s commitment to creating ideal communities

27 Jun 2022
A Jewish family home in Baghdad

A culinary education – Claudia Roden’s ode to Jewish cuisine

Twenty-five years after it was first published, ‘The Book of Jewish Food’ remains an invaluable record of the Jewish diaspora and its manifold culinary traditions

27 Jun 2022
Exterior view of the ‘Borderlands’ exhibition, including Enrique Martínez Celaya’s There-bound (2021), at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.

Progress report – the Huntington reckons with its past and looks to the future

The Gilded Age institution renowned for its Eurocentric holdings is re-evaluating its history and winning over a wider audience

27 Jun 2022

Why was the Royal Academy so willing to let one of its most treasured pieces go?

Sixty years ago the Royal Academy announced the sale of a cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci to fund its activities, but did it make the right decision?

27 Jun 2022

The restoration of the ruins of York Castle is a towering achievement

All that remains of the city’s two medieval castles is the empty shell of a single tower, now imaginatively restored by Hugh Broughton Architects

27 Jun 2022

Making a stand – the Russian artists saying no to war

Judging where to draw the line between maintaining a safe silence and tacitly endorsing the war in Ukraine has become a pressing matter

Joan Miró

Assassination attempts – how Joan Miró set out to destroy painting

The artist produced some of his most innovative and political works at the age of 80 by burning and torturing his canvases and also turning to textiles

23 Jun 2022
Equestrian shrine figure (ojubo elesin) depicting a priestess of Oya, (1920–40), Moshood Olusomo Bamigboye. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

Shrine of the times – a Yoruba masterpiece in focus

Curator James Green takes a close look at a carving by Bamigboye, a sculptor who represented the beating heart of his community in the early 20th century

21 Jun 2022
Château Mouton Rothschild

The perfect blend – art and wine at Château Mouton Rothschild

The graphic designer Jean Carlu was the first artist to create a label for the historic wine estate in 1924, marking the beginning of a long-standing tradition

16 Jun 2022

Acquisitions of the Month: May 2022

This month’s highlights include a silver casket that may have played a part in the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots

2 Jun 2022
Central Park Tower and the Steinway Tower on Billionaires’ Row in New York City.

Why are New York’s new skyscrapers so bad?

As the Manhattan skyline keeps getting higher, the quality of the skyscrapers crowding the horizon seems to be getting lower and lower

30 May 2022
Page from the Chronique de Saint Nicholas de Reims (13th century).

What medieval Christians thought about climate change

Christians in the Middle Ages believed that there was no bad weather in paradise after the Creation and before the Fall of Man

30 May 2022
Detail of Trafalgar Square by Piet Mondrian

Off the grid – the side of Mondrian you’ve never seen before

A completely overlooked painting, left out of the artist’s catalogue raisonné, makes the case for an unexpectedly messier and much more interesting career

30 May 2022

Grand designs – how Gio Ponti transformed Palazzo Bo

The University of Padua may be 800 years old, but this ancient institution is also home to masterpieces of 20th-century design

30 May 2022

A closer look at William Kent’s gilded ceilings at Houghton Hall

With a new book dedicated to William Kent’s Houghton Hall ceilings, Apollo takes a closer look at the depiction of Venus in the Green Velvet Drawing Room

30 May 2022

Gnarled histories – winemaking in Algeria

Though France is now better known for its winemaking industry, the country owes the survival of its connoisseurship to Algeria

30 May 2022
Double take – Picasso’s Seated Nude (detail; 1909–10) and El Greco's Penitent Magdalene (detail; c. 1580–85), El Greco. © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2022

How El Greco rocked Picasso’s world

Carmen Giménez, the curator of an upcoming exhibition in Basel, talks to Apollo about the modernist’s lifelong debt to the Old Master

30 May 2022

Can an exhibition represent a nation?

Exhibitions can successfully capture a cultural and social moment, but they are as much a glimpse into the mindset of the curators as they are into the art of that time

30 May 2022

Fresh flavours at the National Gallery’s new restaurant

The gallery’s gloomy dining room is now a thing of the past. The restaurant has an elegant new look and menu to match

30 May 2022

Cosmopolitan oil dealer Calouste Gulbenkian’s rich pickings

The Armenian businessman had a taste for portable items of beauty and cherished his collection as though it were an extension of himself

27 May 2022

Acquisitions of the Month: April 2022

A terrifically grumpy portrait of Goya and a mythical landscape by Paul Bril are among this month’s highlights

5 May 2022

The art of armour – uncovering the details of a Renaissance shield

Pierre Terjanian of the Metropolitan Museum of Art tells Apollo why a Renaissance pageant shield is such a beguiling work of art

28 Apr 2022

Lines of control – the story of Jackson Pollock’s drips

The American painter may be famed for a chaotic approach, but in reality he had complete command of his materials – and he owed his technique to a printmaker

28 Apr 2022