Art

EDMUND DE WAAL'S UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Fiammetta Rocco — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:00:13 +0000

"The Hare with Amber Eyes" has become an international phenomenon. Fiammetta Rocco follows the author to Vienna and finds the saga continuing ... read more »

WEIGHING UP WARHOL

Tim de Lisle — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:27:59 +0000

Andy Warhol, the cover star of our November/December issue, died 24 years ago, peaked about 20 years before that, and could easily be half-forgotten by now. Instead he looms larger than ever. He accounts for 17% of the market in contemporary art. If you were a collector keen to get your hands on one of his best-known works, and happened to have some Venetian masters to off-load, you would have to sell five Titians to buy one Warhol. In "A one-man market", a leading feature writer and cultural commentator, Bryan Appleyard, works out how this happened and what it means.

Most people will never know what it’s like to live with a Warhol, but in May I spent a few days with one. I was staying at a hotel in Stockholm, the Rival, owned by Benny Andersson from Abba. On its wall is a set of Warhol prints of Ingrid Bergman. It’s great to see her: a beautiful face, a fine actress, a local heroine. But then you see her again and again, because she gazes down on the spot where you wait for the lift, and she discloses no hidden depths. The prints might as well be posters: you can understand why Andersson has them in his hotel, not his home. read more »

A MOVEABLE FEAST

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:23:31 +0000

Diego Rivera's murals, made in 1931 and on show at MoMA, are luminous paintings which still carry potent messages ... read more »

THE AUTUMN OF MAX BECKMANN

Cornelia Günther — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:22:14 +0000

The “Occupy Frankfurt” protests and the euro meltdown were not the only headlines in Germany’s financial capital in October. Also in the news was “Beckmann & America”, an exhibition of the late works of Max Beckmann, a German expressionist painter, at the Städel, Frankfurt’s most famous art museum.

For both the artist and the gallery, this exhibition is a homecoming. The Städel, founded in 1815, is one of nine museums on the south bank of the Main. It is next to the Städelschule, a fine-arts college where Beckmann taught from 1925 until 1933, when Hitler’s regime stripped him of his professorship. He moved to Berlin and then to Amsterdam after the Nazis classified his paintings as “degenerate art”. So it is meaningful that the Städel, which has been undergoing a big reconstruction since September 2009 (including an immense new underground extension), chose Beckmann to mark the reopening of the Peichl Bau, the museum’s wing for special exhibitions. This also happens to be one of three Beckmann shows in Europe this autumn. An exhibition in Leipzig concentrates on his portraits, and one in Basel, Switzerland explores his landscapes. read more »

UP IN THE AIR

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:37:31 +0000

"All", an exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan's art at the Guggenheim in New York, is an audacious anti-retrospective ... read more »

A LADY WITH TWO FACES

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:16:15 +0000

“Lady with an Ermine” is the second-most famous woman in Leonardo’s life. As she makes a rare trip to London, Francesca Kay looks at her magic ... read more »

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:36:58 +0000

Walid Siti explores his native Iraq with intimate and ghostly art at the Venice Biennale and a new show in Dubai ... read more »

ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:17:48 +0000

A new exhibition about Cecil Beaton's career in America brings his singular sensibility into sharp focus, says John McIntyre ... read more »

THE ART OF MONEY

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:06:52 +0000

At a time when bankers have become an easy target, a new exhibition in Florence considers their role in shaping the Renaissance ... read more »

THE LOVELIEST FACES IN THE WORLD

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:58:20 +0000

The portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the 16-year-old mistress of Ludovico Sforza (also known as Ludovico il Moro), Duke of Milan from 1489 until his death in 1508, is not only captivating—popularly known as "Lady with an Ermine" (pictured)—but the most valuable work of art in Poland. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci, it hardly ever leaves the country. But the Bode Museum in Berlin has been able to include it in a fascinating show, "Masterpieces of Renaissance Portraiture". This despite the painting’s fragile state and the fact that German Nazis stole it when they invaded Poland in 1939. The American Allies returned it to the Krakow Czartoryski Museum in May 1945.

This exhibition is sensational. More than 150 portraits, sculptures and medals from the early Italian Renaissance are on view. Thanks to its curators, Stefan Weppelmann from Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) and Keith Christiansen from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, we can now admire all at once outstanding centuries-old works by Sandro Botticelli, Leon Battista Alberti, Desiderio da Settignano, Filippo Lippi, Pisanello, Gentile Bellini, da Vinci and others. The list of lenders includes Britain's Royal Collection, the National Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi in Florence and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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