Apollo

Acquisitions of the Month: November 2022

Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of a grumpy woman and an elaborate art nouveau tea set once owned by Karl Lagerfeld are among this month’s highlights

Can NFTs make a comeback?

Five leading figures in the digital art world offer their insights into how the NFT market will evolve following the crypto crash

The Edwardian architects who built the British Empire

When it came to projecting British power abroad, Christopher Wren proved a handy source of inspiration in the creation of an ‘English Renaissance’ style

Can contemporary art really make us laugh?

Video still from No Tomorrow (2022)

Funny peculiar or funny haha? Perhaps some of the artists who seem a bit obscure are actually trying to make us laugh

Ways of seeing at the Wellcome Collection

Women modelling spectacles of unusual shapes (1925)

The eye may be our most perceptive organ, but it can sometimes make us blind to the other senses

Mother superior – a very proud Mary in Florence

Adoration of the Shepherds (detail; 1485), Domenico Ghirlandaio. Santa Trinità, Florence

Packed with nods to the patron for whom it was painted, the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ is one of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s most appealing works

A mysterious Renaissance sorceress still casts her spell

The Sorceress Circe or Melissa by Dosso Dossi (c. 1518)

The history of Dosso Dossi’s painting of the ‘sorceress’ – otherwise known as Melissa – reveals a bewitching tale of romance

What the Victorians liked to hang on their walls

Poor Relations by George Goodwin Kilburne

Thanks to mass production (and reproduction), in the 19th-century some middle-class homes began to resemble miniature picture galleries

The American who conquered cafe society in Rome

Restoration, Villa Borghese by Milton Gendel

For seven decades, Milton Gendel recorded his charmed existence in delightfully candid photos and diaries

Surveillance tactics – the art of spying on screen

Gene Hackman in The Conversation

The Cinémathèque française’s unsettling show about film-making and espionage reveals how much the two activities have in common

NFTs after the crypto crash – what happens now?

Ursula Endlicher's Input Field Reversal #2 (2022)

Are NFTs a revolutionary approach to new media art or simply a fleeting trend? Jane Morris explores the role of non-fungible tokens today

Mulling it over – how spiced wine became the festive drink of choice

The Wine of Saint Martin’s Day

Mulled wine may be the fuel for contemporary Christmas celebrations but drinking it is a tradition that dates back to antiquity

How did British artists respond to the AIDS crisis?

Derek Jarman

While Britain was no less affected by the disease than the United States, the response of its gay artists at the start of the crisis was provocatively distinct

Uncommon grounds – the market for paintings on gold

The Mocking of Christ (c. 1280), Cimabue (Actéon, €24.2m)

When it comes to gold-ground paintings from Italy, condition is everything and the older the work, the better

Can stones unlock the secrets of our existence?

Contemporary artists are looking to geological forms less for aesthetic cues than for perspective on time, place and human agency

An appetite for art – sampling the Tate’s Cézanne-inspired menu

A menu designed to accompany the gallery’s survey of the artist pays homage to the flavours of Provence, but doesn’t quite live up to the works on show

The triumph of the Tudors

Other European dynasties of the period had equally thriving court cultures, but none has had such a hold on the popular imagination

The unfashionable art of Ruskin Spear

Alf and the Canary (Brown Ale) by Ruskin Spear

Tanya Harrod’s biography of the unfairly neglected painter champions his scenes of London working-class life

How Henry Fuseli turned poems into paintings

The Three Witches or Weird Sisters

Few 18th-century painters were more enthusiastic about embracing English literature than the Swiss-born artist

The soft resistance of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s woven sculptures

Magdalena Abakanowicz

The Polish artist sometimes worked at a monumental scale, but her most impressive works are less about the size than the power of their expression

What’s the point of old postcards?

Unused postcards may seem like a blast from the past, but they can still send a powerful message

The Belvedere. 300 Years a Place of Art

The Rich Glutton (1836), Josef Danhauser. Collection Rudolf Arthaber

A display in Vienna charts the history of one of the world’s first public museums

Horror in the Modernist Block

Contemporary artists explore the fearful potential of architecture at Ikon gallery in Birmingham

Helen Frankenthaler: Painterly Constellations

The American abstract painter’s soak-stain canvases and vivid works on paper get their first showing in Germany for more than 20 years