Features

The Schmadribach Waterfall above Lauterbrunnen (detail; c.1793), Joseph Anton Koch. Purchased by the British Museum with the assistance of The Art Fund, the American Friends of the British Museum, the Tavolozza Foundation, Charles Booth-Clibborn, the Wakefield Trust and the Ottley Group

A significant Alpine landscape at the British Museum

Joseph Anton Koch’s drawing of a waterfall is an outstanding early Romantic view of Switzerland

22 Jan 2018
Pickett’s Charge (Battle) (detail; 2016–17), Mark Bradford.

Mark Bradford confronts the myths of America’s past

The artist draws on 19th-century battle scenes to create a very different historical narrative at the Hirshhorn

16 Jan 2018
Camillo Borghese (c. 1810), François-Pascal-Simon Gérard. Courtesy of The Frick Collection, New York

Acquisitions of the month: December 2017

Last month’s acquisitions include a portrait of a hirsute lady, and a major purchase for the Frick

13 Jan 2018
Eugene Thaw

Eugene Thaw (1927–2018)

Eugene Thaw, the collector of drawings and celebrated art dealer, has died at the age of 90

9 Jan 2018
Vivian Maier (1926–2009) often photographed her reflection in mirrors or windows, © 2018 The Estate of Vivian Maier

The double lives of outsider artists

Vivian Maier took thousands of photographs, but showed them to no one. Why are some artists so determined to keep their work secret?

8 Jan 2018
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (Femme nue, feuilles et buste) (detail; 1932), Pablo Picasso. Private Collection © Succession Picasso/DACS London, 2017

The reopening of the Hayward Gallery and a Tacita Dean trilogy

It’s a big year for museums in the UK, with reopenings, expansions, and collaborations in London and Cambridge

6 Jan 2018
The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin

Fra Angelico in Boston, Scarpa’s glass, and Tintoretto at 500

The chief curator of the Frick Collection picks out his highlights for the year ahead

5 Jan 2018
Artist Gillian Wearing with a model of her statue of Millicent Fawcett. Photograph: Caroline Teo/GLA/PA

The major art anniversaries to look out for in 2018

Expect celebrations of Cubism, universal suffrage, architects and art collectors in the coming year

5 Jan 2018

The Irish art galleries ringing the changes in 2018

Highlights in Dublin and Cork this year include exhibitions on Brian Maguire, Wolfgang Tillmans and Mary Swanzy

4 Jan 2018
She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene (2009), Danh Vo. Collection Chantal Crousel. Photo: Jean-Daniel Pellen, Paris

Myths, music, and medieval Celtic

Looking forward to a year of monographic exhibitions, from Joan Jonas in London to Danh Vō in New York

3 Jan 2018
View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm–The Oxbow, (1836), Thomas Cole, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Old worlds and new horizons

Highlights of 2018 include Thomas Cole’s paintings at the Met and Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s mural at MoCA

2 Jan 2018
View from the Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel and completed in 2017, photo: Mohamed Somji; © Louvre Abu Dhabi

Does the Louvre Abu Dhabi live up to its aims?

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is undeniably impressive, but can it succeed in becoming the universal museum it wants to be?

2 Jan 2018
He Kills Me (1987), Donald Moffett

A trip along the East Coast of the United States

From post-war German art at Harvard to Leonardo at the Worcester Art Museum, here are some gems beyond the blockbuster exhibitions

1 Jan 2018
Kinshasa la Belle, (detail), (1991), Bodys Isek Kingelez, CAAC – The Pigozzi Collection, Geneva, Photo: Maurice Aeschimann; © Bodys Isek Kingelez

Early photography, ancient Egypt, and postmodern architecture

Highlights of 2018 include Victorian photographers, Egyptian influences, and models from Kinshasa

31 Dec 2017
Teatro Garibaladi in Palermo, which in July 2017 opened its doors for the pre-biennial programme ‘Waiting for Manifesta 12’. © Manifesta 12, 2017. Photo by CAVE Studio

Video games and the many gardens of Manifesta

European highlights for 2018 include three promising young artists and Palermo’s eco-focused edition of Manifesta

Avant-garde legends and art to change the world

Prominent exhibitions in 2018 will explore how art challenges power and how far it can transform the world

29 Dec 2017

Studio ceramics and Charles I’s reunited treasures

Masterpieces by Titian, Dürer, and Van Dyck return to London from their far-flung homes, and pottery comes to Cambridge

28 Dec 2017
Apollo and Marsyas (1637), Jusepe de Ribera

Pain, precision and poetry

Highlights of 2018 include violent visions in Dulwich, Bruegel in Vienna, and T.S. Eliot at Turner Contemporary

27 Dec 2017

Turning the spotlight on Sir Richard Wallace

The Wallace Collection celebrates the 200th anniversary of its founder’s birth

26 Dec 2017
Detail from folio 196v of the Luttrell Psalter, (c. 1325–40), unknown artist; patron: Geoffrey Luttrell, British Library, London, photo: © British Library Board

Sexing up the cherry

The cherry has come a long way over the centuries – as medieval badges, Renaissance paintings, and a video by Beyoncé reveal

At home with the Ceaușescus

The dictator and his wife lived in luxury at their Spring Palace – with a golden bathroom and the only colour TV in Romania

22 Dec 2017

How a digital dictionary will advance furniture history

A new digital resource holds a trove of information and will make furniture history more widely accessible

20 Dec 2017
Enrico Castellani, c. 2001. Photography by Nando Lanfranco

Enrico Castellani (1930–2017)

The Italian artist, minimalism’s chosen forefather, was a key figure of the post-war avant-garde

12 Dec 2017
Brooch, 1907, designed by Josef Hoffmann. Courtesy Neue Galerie, New York

The business of luxury in modern Vienna

The Wiener Werkstätte was a commercial flop, but its designs still embody the spirit of Viennese modernism

9 Dec 2017