The Guardian
Tomma Abts @ the Serpentine Gallery
The Guardian
Adrian Searle reviews works by Tomma Abts at the Serpentine Gallery, London, on view through September 9, 2018. Searle writes: “Someone once said Abts’ work reminded them of wallpaper designs from East Germany. The paintings flirt with a kind of datedness. They do not quite belong to their moment. They are hard to place. This is […]
Surface Work @ Victoria Miro
The Guardian
Laura Cumming reviews Surface Work, a comprehensive survey of abstract painting by female artists, at Victoria Miro Mayfair (through June 16) and Victoria Miro Wharf Road (through May 19), London. Cumming writes that the show “is nothing less than an anthology of abstract painting spanning an entire century, from early constructivism to post-digital sampling, in which […]
Making Work for LS Lowry
The Guardian
Reprinted from May 12,1960, photographer Robert Smithies recounts commissioning a painting from LS Lowry. Smithies recalls: “The steps rose from ruins of a demolished terrace. A lamp-post, bent with age, pointed from the bottom to the surmounting stock brick façade of yet another chapel – the Primitives… ‘Now I really must paint that! What do […]
America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s
The Guardian
Laura Cumming reviews America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, on view through June 4, 2017. Cumming writes: “In the truest sense, these works are signs of the times. They hold an entire American decade intact with their images of factories, docks, gas pumps and turbines, of […]
Joan Eardley: A Sense of Place
The Guardian
Frances Spalding reviews Joan Eardley: A Sense of Place is at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, on view through May 21, 2017. Spalding writes: “[Eardley’s] intense looking and her method of drawing affirm her admiration for Van Gogh, and an affinity between her urban work and his involvement with the coal mining […]
Vanessa Bell @ the Dulwich Picture Gallery
The Guardian
Lauren Elkin previews Vanessa Bell: 1879-1941 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. The show will be on view from February 8 – June 4, 2017. Elkin concludes: “Bell’s art countered symbolism with intense sensuality and a celebration of the tactile. The explosive beauty of the surface takes us back to the material of the work, […]
David Hockney @ the Tate
The Guardian
Olivia Laing previews the exhibition David Hockney which will be on view at Tate Britain from February 9 – May 29, 2017. Laing writes: “As a spectacular new retrospective at Tate Britain makes clear … twists and turns in thematic preoccupations and new techniques [explored by Hockney throughout his career] do not represent a lack […]
Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans
The Guardian
Laura Cumming reviews Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, on view through January 29, 2017. Cumming writes: “To find oneself burled up in life’s turbulence – single cells metastasising in unpredictable throngs – that is Ensor’s modern danse macabre. His predecessors may be Bosch and Goya, and perhaps […]
Frank Auerbach on John Constable
The Guardian
Tim Adams talks to painter Frank Auerbach about the work of John Constable on the occasion of the exhibition Constable: The Making of a Master at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, on view through January 15, 2015. Auerbach tells Adams: "With the passage of time … Constable has meant more and more and more to me. […]