A new exhibition of early 20th-century Estonian painter Konrad Mägi at Dulwich Picture Gallery has received a scathing critical review. The reviewer finds Mägi's colorful, modernist-influenced landscapes and portraits to be bland, derivative, and devoid of the emotional depth or urgency found in the great modernists or the gallery's own Old Master collection.
Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal's new exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ in London presents a disorienting array of paintings. The works juxtapose disparate and often disturbing images, including a grotesque depiction of the Oval Office, portraits of his family, album art for the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, and a forest scene linked to the Holocaust, creating a deliberate sense of fragmentation and broken connections.
The artist Catherine Opie is currently the subject of a major three-decade portrait survey, 'To Be Seen', at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The exhibition highlights Opie’s career-long commitment to representing the LGBTQ+ community, specifically the leather dyke scene in Los Angeles, through a lens that balances defiance with playfulness. Even her most provocative works, such as the 1993 self-portrait featuring a domestic scene carved into her back, are revealed to contain elements of humor and historical allusion that counter the despair of the AIDS crisis and personal heartbreak.
The article reviews Stephen Shore's book *Early Work*, which collects photographs he took between the ages of 13 and 18, from 1960 to 1965. Despite his youth, the images display remarkable sophistication, a feat Shore attributes to an atypical childhood that included early access to cameras and a copy of Walker Evans's *American Photographs*. The book includes a "pre-history" essay in which Shore reflects on his formative influences, including time spent at Andy Warhol's Factory and a friendship with headmaster William Dexter, who deepened his interest in photography. The earliest image in the book is a portrait of Dexter taking a photograph, which Shore describes as a metanarrative of a photographer photographing a photographer.
Cultured's art critic reflects on the best and worst of 2025, highlighting standout moments including Salman Toor's 2007 portrait of Zohran Mamdani (now mayor-elect of New York), the posthumous Jack Whitten survey "The Messenger" at MoMA, and Anne Imhof's epic production "DOOM: House of Hope" at the Park Avenue Armory. The article also notes Mamdani's arts-friendly transition committee and the broader resilience of artists amid political turmoil.
Christopher Payne's exhibition "Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne" at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum showcases 72 large-format photographs documenting active American factories and manufacturing processes. The trained architect turned photographer spent a decade visiting dozens of production sites across the United States, from the New York Times printing plant in Queens to the Bollman Hat Company in Pennsylvania, capturing workers' craftsmanship and the intricate steps involved in making everything from Peeps candies to jet engines. The exhibition is organized into three sections—traditional handcraft, large-scale production, and cutting-edge technologies—and coincides with the Smithsonian's celebration of the nation's 250th anniversary.
Lauren Moya Ford reviews the only book dedicated to Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, who died six months ago. The book, "Performing Chance: The Art of Alison Knowles In/Out of Fluxus" by Nicole L. Woods (2026), attempts to illuminate Knowles's life and work, but Ford notes that much of her personal life remains mysterious despite the author's efforts. The article is part of a broader books newsletter that also features new tomes on Hans Holbein’s portraits, Jan Staller’s photographs of Manhattan construction sites, and a discussion of a Black Panther family album at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
The exhibition "Nigerian Modernism" at Tate Modern in London is the first show of its kind in the UK, surveying how Nigerian artists forged a postcolonial identity across the 20th century. It features works by pioneers such as Aina Onabolu, Benedict Enwonwu, and members of the radical Zaria Art Society, including Uche Okeke, Jimo Akolo, and Clara Etso Ugbodaga-Ngu, highlighting their break from British artistic traditions and embrace of local visual heritage.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is hosting "Contours of a World," a retrospective dedicated to Gabriele Münter, a co-founder of the Blue Rider group. The exhibition moves beyond the shadow of her long-time partner Wassily Kandinsky, showcasing her distinct approach to German Expressionism through photography, intimate domestic scenes, and vibrant landscapes. Unlike her contemporaries who leaned toward total abstraction, Münter utilized bold outlines and layered compositions to create a dynamic, phenomenological experience of seeing.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has opened the exhibition 'Frida and Diego: The Last Dream,' a collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera tied to its upcoming production of the opera 'El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.' The show, designed by stage and costume designer Jon Bausor, transplants theatrical elements like a tree-of-life set model and blue tarp drapes into the gallery, alongside a reshuffling of key Kahlo and Rivera works from MoMA's collection.
Haroutiun Galentz: The Form of Colour
A new English-language monograph, *Haroutiun Galentz: The Form of Colour*, repositions the Armenian-Lebanese painter as a major cosmopolitan modernist. The book assembles his work from international collections, arguing his career—spanning formative years in Beirut's pre-war art scene and a later period in the Soviet Union—must be understood beyond national art historical frameworks.
Beaux Arts Magazine publishes a detailed visual analysis of Jean-François Millet's painting "L'Angélus" (1857–1859), housed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The article describes the scene of two peasants pausing their potato harvest to pray at dusk, examining the composition, color, and spiritual resonance of the work. It also traces Millet's biography—from his peasant origins in the Cotentin region to his training under Langlois and Paul Delaroche, and his early career painting portraits and nudes before turning to rural subjects.
Two concurrent solo exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen Gallery feature the work of artists Kevin McNamee-Tweed and Tajh Rust. McNamee-Tweed presents enigmatic, tenderly absurd ceramic scenes, while Rust debuts in New York with figurative paintings that explore perception and Black identity through portraits of leisure and experimental silvered glass works.
A new wave of gallery exhibitions is championing analog physicality and personal intimacy as a direct counter-response to the rise of AI-generated imagery. Artists like Ben Wolf Noam and Joseph Geagan are utilizing traditional mediums such as charcoal, lithography, and oil paint to capture spontaneous, sentimental moments of human connection, from family dinners to portraits of friends. These works emphasize the "hospitable mess" of real life, prioritizing the recognizable faces and tangible textures that AI often flattens.
A new book, 'Holbein: Renaissance Master' by Elizabeth Goldring, published by Yale University Press and the Paul Mellon Centre, offers a comprehensive scholarly examination of the 16th-century German painter Hans Holbein the Younger. The review focuses on Holbein's masterful portraiture, particularly his depictions of opposing Tudor-era figures like Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, which are highlighted as embodying the era's complex political and religious tensions through their visual presentation at the Frick Collection in New York.
A new biography titled *Chaïm Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art*, written by Celeste Marcus, explores the life and work of the early 20th-century painter Chaïm Soutine. Marcus argues that Soutine’s intensely visceral paintings—featuring dizzying landscapes, bloody carcasses, and penetrating portraits—are the key to understanding the artist, who left behind few personal records. The book challenges the tendency to read historical tragedy, particularly Soutine’s identity as an Eastern European Jew before WWII, into his turbulent brushwork, instead emphasizing the life force and internal logic of his compositions.
A new biography of Chaïm Soutine, the early 20th-century painter, has been published. The book, written by Celeste Marcus, attempts to piece together the life of the notoriously private and illusive artist, examining his journey from a Belarusian shtetl to the studios of Montparnasse, his complex relationships, and the myths that have grown around his work and persona.
A revival of Nicholas Wright's 2002 play "Vincent in Brixton" is receiving a tender production directed by Georgia Green at the Orange Tree Theatre. The play dramatizes a speculative romantic episode from the young Vincent van Gogh's life when he lived as a lodger in south London, focusing on his relationship with his widowed landlady, Ursula.
Artist Mark Milroy, an observational painter in his mid-50s who gained a following during the pandemic through Instagram and online shows at Nancy Margolis Gallery, is now holding his debut New York exhibition, "Jumbo," at JJ Murphy gallery through May 16. The show features 18 oil paintings and 12 colored pencil drawings, with subjects ranging from still lifes and portraits to a titular painting referencing the famous P.T. Barnum elephant killed in Milroy's hometown of St. Thomas, Ontario, in 1885. Milroy's work blends personal memory, art historical insight, and a deliberate gaze, drawing influences from Cedric Morris and 15th-century Florentine painting.
Hastings Contemporary has launched its inaugural biennial, titled "The Open: Odyssey," featuring over 150 artists with connections to Sussex. Selected from a pool of 2,600 applicants by a panel led by Kathleen Soriano, the exhibition explores themes of marine ecology, migration, mythology, and coastal life. Notable works include Alan Patch’s large-scale hanging of plastic detritus, Kate Howe’s monumental waxed paper installation "The Moving Edge," and Kevin J J Warren’s sculptures made from salvaged fishing nets.
The article presents a selection of recently published art books, highlighting new releases on artists Tracey Emin, Beatriz González, and Lucian Freud, as well as a second volume on Arab Modernist artists. It details the content of each book, including personal reflections, career overviews, and connections to upcoming exhibitions.
The author recounts traveling from Scotland to London to see Tate Britain's exhibition "Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals," despite costly and slow train travel. The article also covers the Old Master sales at Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams, noting mixed results: a Flemish triptych sold for £5.7m, a Hans Eworth portrait set a record at £3.2m, and a Gerrit Dou fetched £3.8m, while a Panini capriccio lost value since 2005.
A blog post examines Van Gogh's lesser-known self-portrait, *Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe* (January 1889), held in a private collection and rarely exhibited—last lent outside Switzerland in 1990. The painting shows the artist clean-shaven, smoking a pipe, with a striking orange-red background, painted just weeks after he mutilated his ear following a row with Paul Gauguin. The post contrasts it with the more famous version in London's Courtauld Gallery, analyzing compositional details and the artist's psychological state.
The Musée du Louvre in Paris has opened a major retrospective of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), the greatest Neoclassical artist, marking his biggest survey in nearly four decades. The exhibition, mounted for the 200th anniversary of his death, comprises just over 100 works, including strategic loans from France and eight other countries, and complements the Louvre's own holdings. The show aims to redefine David beyond the Neoclassical label, presenting him instead as both a "realist" and an "idealist," and is compared to blockbusters like the Rijksmuseum's Vermeer show.
The film *Moss & Freud*, directed by James Lucas, explores the unlikely friendship between supermodel Kate Moss (played by Ellie Bamber) and painter Lucian Freud (Derek Jacobi) in 2001 London. The story centers on Moss's desire to sit for the reclusive portraitist, culminating in Freud's unflattering *Naked Portrait 2002*. However, the film glosses over Freud's darker reputation—his punishingly long sittings, cruelty, and violent tendencies—portraying him instead as a benign, eccentric old man. It also fails to deeply investigate Moss's character or the exploitation within the fashion industry, relying on weak scripting and forced parallels between Moss and Freud's ex-wife Lady Caroline Blackwood.
Wendy Hitchmough’s new biography, *Vanessa Bell: The Life and Art of a Bloomsbury Radical*, argues that Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was a central figure in 20th-century visual culture, both as an artist and designer. The book details how Bell navigated sexism through collaboration and anonymity, with works like *Dancing Couple* only attributed to her in 1999. Hitchmough, a former curator of Charleston, presents Bell’s life with a matter-of-fact tone, weaving in the complex personal and professional entanglements of the Bloomsbury Group, including her relationships with Clive Bell, Roger Fry, and Molly MacCarthy.
William Kentridge's latest exhibition, 'A Natural History of the Studio,' at Hauser & Wirth in New York presents over 70 drawings from his nine-part film series 'Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot,' alongside new sculptures. The works, created during the pandemic, explore self-portraiture through charcoal, pastel, and collage, often featuring doppelgängers that argue and disagree, reflecting the artist's engagement with theater and the materiality of his forms.
A new monograph on Indian-born British painter Celia Paul (b. 1959) presents an expansive survey of her career, featuring over 500 color reproductions and essays by Hilton Als, Clare Carlisle, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Edmund de Waal, and Rowan Williams, alongside contributions from the artist herself. The book traces Paul's trajectory from her training at the Slade School of Fine Art and her decade-long relationship with Lucian Freud to her recent solo exhibition *Colony of Ghosts* at Victoria Miro in London, positioning her as a singular figure distinct from the shadow of Freud and the School of London painters.
Art historian Winnie Wong’s new book, *The Many Names of Anonymity: Portraitists of the Canton Trade*, investigates the lives and legacies of 18th and 19th-century Chinese artists who produced works for Western traders under the Canton system. These artists, often dismissed by history as mere copyists or left anonymous in museum "tombstone" labels, created complex works that blended European techniques with Chinese traditions. Wong challenges the reductive category of "Asian export art," proposing instead the term "Canton trade painting" to better reflect the unique atmosphere of cultural exchange in Guangzhou.
The Boston Public Library in Copley Square has opened "Revolution! 250 Years of Art and Activism in Boston," its first major exhibition in nearly a decade. The show uses a deliberately unfinished design of plywood and scaffolding to symbolize democracy as a work in progress, moving chronologically from the American Revolution through the 21st century. It features engravings by Paul Revere, portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, works addressing Toussaint L’Ouverture and Haitian revolution, Boston abolitionists, the Civil War, civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and contemporary activism including Indigenous, LGBTQ+, climate, and anti-police brutality movements.