Reviews
The puckish figures of Franciszka Themerson
The Polish-born artist’s paintings and drawings may have an air of the doodle, but her politically radical work is thrillingly inventive
Royals with really grand designs
From Louis XIV to Catherine the Great, monarchs didn’t just commission ambitious projects, but also played a serious part in the design process
The afterlives of the wives of Henry VIII
Being married to the monarch was a hazardous business, but all six queens have lived on in popular memory and the artistic imagination
The British artists who took a restless approach to still life
Still-life painting in Britain really took off in the 20th century when artists adopted a more experimental approach
The weird reflections of Jean Cocteau
An exhibition in Venice underscores the artist’s restless imagination and shapeshifting tendencies
Michelangelo’s careful image management
An exhibition at the British Museum shows that the artist deliberately shaped his legacy by the drawings he chose to leave behind
For Carole Gibbons, there’s no place like home
Now 88, the Glaswegian artist is finally being fêted for her unpredictable visions of domesticity
The dazzling paintings of Matthew Wong
The self-taught artist died tragically young at the age of 35, but there’s no denying the talent he demonstrated in his all-too-brief career
Who should we believe about the British Empire?
Drawings and watercolours of India belonging to a Scottish railway engineer take on new meaning if we look for what they don’t show
The optical allusions of Constantin Brancusi
Identifying the inspirations for the Romanian sculptor’s enigmatic works remains quite the puzzle
The British colourist who passed down the lessons of Matisse
Matthew Smith’s striking use of colour, learnt from the Post-Impressionists, left a mark on the British artists who succeeded him
The burning ambitions of Roger Ackling
Using nothing but a magnifying glass and the sun’s rays, the artist created sculptures that defy easy categorisation
The Renaissance patrons who were no saints in religious paintings
Christopher Wood’s account of a turning point in early Renaissance art is typically demanding and always stimulating
The British collectors who developed a decided taste for Degas
William Burrell came to own 23 paintings by the artist, but an exhibition in Glasgow shows that his contemporaries were just as appreciative
When Robert Rauschenberg went on tour
The artist spent much of the 1980s making works inspired by his international trips – and showing off the results in the countries themselves
The artists who were obsessed with West Sussex
Blake, Constable and Ivon Hitchens all feature in Alexandra Harris’s account of a place she knows well, but it’s the more obscure figures who really shine
Bohemian rhapsodies – Augustus John and his brilliant friends
In a show at Piano Nobile, the artist and his circle vie for our attention with the women who made their art possible
For the Loewe Foundation, there is no higher art than craft
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell whether the finalists of the annual Craft Prize are artisans aspiring to art, or artists getting crafty
The ancient role models that inspired women after the French Revolution
In the late 1790s, modern women looking for new forms of freedom were often inspired by distant and mythical histories
A tale of two British artists turns out to be a real whodunit
Why did Dorothy Hepworth allow her lover Patricia Preece to take the credit for her paintings? An intriguing exhibition at Charleston provides some clues
There’s more to Japan’s Arts and Crafts movement than meets the eye
In its telling of the story of the Mingei movement, the William Morris Gallery takes a refreshingly international approach
Crossed wires – the strange music of Tarek Atoui
At his best, the Beirut-born artist offers gallery-goers weird and wonderful new ways of experiencing sound
Court in the middle – the arts in France under Charles VII
In the first half of the 15th century, artists drew on the Northern and Italian Renaissances to create a distinctly French cultural flowering
Enter the void with Pierre Huyghe
An exhibition in Venice of the French artist’s work is conceptually dense, but does it work in visual terms?
What happens when an artist wants to be anonymous?