Search results for: first look

Journey to Mount Tamalpais (detail; 2008), Etel Adnan. Private collection

Etel Adnan (1925–2021)

In 2018, the Lebanese–American painter and poet talked to Apollo about her love of California and the difference between her painting and writing

15 Nov 2021
Tacita Dean, photographed in Frith Street Gallery’s Golden Square space in London, in October 2021. Behind her is one of the works in the Purgatory (2021) series.

‘I have to fight for the corner of film’ – an interview with Tacita Dean

The British artist has consistently used film as a means of making a statement about painting. But now her chosen medium is urgently in need of saving

12 Nov 2021

Exhibition of the Year

Alice Neel: People Come First Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 22 March–1 August In around 100 paintings, drawings and…

12 Nov 2021

Book of the Year

A Biographical Dictionary of English Architecture, 1540–1640 Mark Girouard Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art The eminent architectural…

12 Nov 2021

My Cultural City – the magic of Bern and Thun, with Nina Zimmer

The director of the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee picks out her highlights in two of Switzerland’s most charming cities

11 Nov 2021
A billboard for Balenciaga on a church in Venice in 2017.

The billboards that are turning Venice into an eyesore

Luxury brands are certainly contributing to the conservation of Venice – but massive advertisements on historic buildings are starting to spoil the views

9 Nov 2021
Detail of a mid 16th- to 17th-century plaque depicting two members of the Benin Court. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, D.C.

The week in art news – Smithsonian Museum of African Art commits to restituting Benin Bronzes

Plus: Humboldt Forum to remove medallion honouring donor with far-right views, and more stories

6 Nov 2021
Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Contemporary art has a new home – at the Vatican

Pope Francis seems to be a fan of contemporary art – and he’s hardly the first pontiff to have encouraged the latest artistic developments

5 Nov 2021
Chromatic (1932) Gluck. Private collection. Photo: Bridgeman Images

The messy reality of immaculate still lifes

Rebecca Birrell’s absorbing book asks us to look beneath the surface of work by women artists – but perhaps a rose sometimes really is just a rose?

5 Nov 2021
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1872), Vasily Perov. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Dostoevsky’s distrust of the West ran deep – but so did his love of the Old Masters

The novelist revered Raphael’s Sistine Madonna – and Holbein’s Dead Christ almost induced an epileptic fit

3 Nov 2021
Aaron Kudi.

‘You get to give objects a new life’ – an interview with Aaron Kudi

The sculptor talks to Apollo about the role of chance, rap music, and investigating spirituality

1 Nov 2021
Lucy McKenzie at Tate Liverpool, 2021.

In the studio with… Lucy McKenzie

The artist with a training in trompe l’oeil painting keeps ring binders with recipes for gilding and how to create a convincing sky

29 Oct 2021
Kilkeel Shipyard (1943), Nevill Johnson.

A century of art from Northern Ireland inevitably paints a complex picture

An exhibition in Belfast marking 100 years of the country treads rather carefully, for understandable reasons

26 Oct 2021
David Livingstone (1813–71), photographed in 1864 by Thomas Annan.

Missionary position – David Livingstone’s birthplace gets a makeover

It’s not easy to repackage a museum devoted to a Victorian missionary, but the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum has pulled it off

25 Oct 2021

Should museums be dabbling in NFTs?

Bernadine Bröcker Wieder and Douglas McCarthy consider what museums are really selling when they mint NFTs – and what serious collectors want

25 Oct 2021
Flag (1954–55), Jasper Johns.

Jasper Johns, American dreamer

A monumental two-part survey in Philadelphia and New York proves that the artist has always forged his own path

25 Oct 2021
A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term (detail; 1632–33), Nicolas Poussin. The National Gallery

Poussin’s dancers pass the test of time

Time is suspended in Nicolas Poussin’s paintings of dancers who revel in the viewer’s attention

23 Oct 2021

‘He found the extraordinary everywhere’ – a tribute to Atta Kwami (1956–2021)

The Ghanaian artist’s vivid prints, paintings and architectural structures were inspired by inner-city life in Kumasi

21 Oct 2021
A view of the reader's desk inside the bimah in Bevis Marks Synagogue in 2015.

Britain’s oldest synagogue is safe for now – but developers still threaten its future

Bevis Marks has seen off the latest threat to its existence, but such a significant site deserves much better

15 Oct 2021
Courtyard facade of the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus (1862), Francis Bedford.

Damascene conversion – the knotty religious history of the Umayyad Mosque

Built to rival the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the great mosque in Damascus has always been claimed by rival faiths

15 Oct 2021
Where Everything is Twice, Airmail Painting No. 173 (2007), Eugenio Dittborn.

The airborne art of Eugenio Dittborn

The Chilean artist’s practice of folding up his work and posting it to galleries began as a means of evading the censors

15 Oct 2021
Tschabalala Self in her studio in New Haven, photographed in 2020.

In the studio with… Tschabalala Self

The artist has a strict curfew when it comes to working late in her studio in New Haven – her absolute cut-off is 7pm

13 Oct 2021
James VI & I (detail; c. 1620), Paul Van Somer.

At home with the Stuarts – Palaces of Revolution by Simon Thurley, reviewed

A new study reminds us that royal palaces were places to live in as well as impressive displays of power

13 Oct 2021
Francis Bacon photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1960 in his studio at Overstrand Mansions in Battersea, London.

How Francis Bacon got by – with a lot of help from his friends

A new biography of the painter gives full credit to the cast of characters who supported him before he found success

12 Oct 2021