Crisp days and clear skies are here in the UK, yet chilled winds and raindrops still persist in Springtime. When I look at the rain in this painting, I’m reminded that it doesn’t chill us to the bones as it did a few month ago …
That the sitter was a lesbian is clearly on record as was the furore caused around the publication of her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), which makes the argument for lesbian rights and same-sex marriage. A decade after this portrait was painted, her work would be banned …
The name Terence Higgins sits on queer people's lips with both pride and poignancy. Terence’s biography as a House of Commons Hansard reporter, barman and DJ is largely overshadowed by him being one of the first people in the UK to die of an AIDS-related illness …
Meet the Chevalier, a part of early 19th-century fashionable London society. A French diplomat, soldier, spy, celebrity fencer, performer and author, d’Eon lived and dressed throughout their life as both a man and woman. A source of fascination, people placed bets on …
While the world tells us that the new year means we all ought to be leaping into new ventures, the image of January in this panel seems to show a tired bearded man, warming his hands by the fire. According to this wooden panel, probably from the early 1700s …
The name of this artist remains anonymous, but the subject is clear to see. Made in a secure children’s home, the artist is putting their tag on clear display for us. What do they want us to understand or feel about tagging children? …
Is this street sloping up or downhill? Harold Riley wrote “I played with pictures of streets. I can’t tell if it’s going up or down, Some think it’s going down to the sea, or rising up to the hills. I like to play this trick. I find it interesting.” Like his friend, associate and local Salford artist L. S. Lowry …
So proud are the people of Chesterfield of George Stephenson that they held not only these celebrations outside the market hall in 1881 (marking the centenary of his birth) but also further festivities in 1948 on the centenary of his death …
The River Thames, full of evocative atmosphere, mysterious light and radiant colour as captured by someone who understood exactly how to replicate the effects of light on the canvas. It’s on display in London, just a few metres from where Monet made the painting ...
As part of the process for sitting for this portrait, Horse sang her best-loved song Careful live and a cappella for the artist in her London studio. Roxanna Halls has captured something of Horse’s charismatic and enthralling performance style …
Hands are reputedly the hardest part of the body to paint. And so I typed ‘hands’ into ArtUK and waited to see what came back. There’s a lot, and largely very well executed (to my untrained eye). This pair of hands caught my eye. Even though there’s only one full hand visible …
Art is beautiful, but also dangerous. Sappho (on the right here) wrote nine books of poetry, the principal subject of which is the joy and frustration of love. That these two women are lovers is clear by the pair of doves seated above them …
With its dinghies, dilutants, solutions and snowfall, is this a poem? Or is it a painting? Given how much I enjoy looking at it, I don't really mind if it’s neither or both. The intertwined words and phrases …
Tulips might be best associated with spring, but they’ve just started to reappear on florists’ stands across Britain, bringing some colour and light to these dark months …
How should one go about describing this painting in a gallery label? Or perhaps not even describe it but to direct visitors’ eyes, brains or emotions in a certain direction? It’s part of the skill of the curator to write this text and also the interpreter …
The yellow pigment has faded over time, leaving a white canary and blue foliage, but the subject of this painting – a young girl’s sadness at her first confrontation with death – is as clear to us as it was to viewers nearly 300 years ago …
What drama, peeking around the red curtain. A devil-like figure, once considered too controversial for the audience of its time, has resurfaced from the depths of this painting, thanks to investigative conservators. They found layers of …
W. E. Gladstone – tried, trusted and true – peeks out of this image with his trademark grimace, amongst a bouquet of lurid flowers. Silk pictures made by Thomas Stevens of Coventry, known as Stevengraphs, became popular from the late 1870s …
London is set to host ceremonial processions through the streets of London this week, although likely with a different tone to that inspired by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector and the first (perhaps not the last) commoner to become head of state in Britain …
The fine details of art history sometimes needs unpicking for us mere mortals, but here’s a refreshing example of a display where the story is pretty clear – how Bernat Klein used an abstract oil painting …
Before his career in politics, the so-called ‘Beast of Bolsover’ worked as a miner. He’s perhaps more famously, and certainly warmly, remembered as the Labour MP for Bolsover from 1970 until 2019, and this is how …
Stephen is surrounded by the tools of his murder and the remains of his tattered robe – perhaps this is a scene that some people recognise on this Boxing Day morning, after the celebratory highs of the day before …
Influenced by the world of Van Gogh, Mario Giacoya (born 1951 in Sarandí Grande, Florida) creates artworks that are alive with fluidity and colour. Their approach to landscape painting stands out, a rural landscape …
“With an apple, I will astonish Paris” Cezanne once claimed. Leaving his native Aix-en-Provence for Paris in his 20s, this is precisely what he did, a story explored in a new exhibition at Tate Modern. Cezanne’s still lifes …
Images of the fictional village of Llareggub (read it backwards) are usually only ever summoned up in the mind, when hearing a performance or recording of Dylan Thomas's play for voices, 'Under Milk Wood' …
Strange how we have been fed some specific visual styles from certain artists. At first sight, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was by Van Gogh, not Mondrian. No squares of primary colour …
This is the only known oil painting of Mary Seacole – once an almost unknown nurse from the Crimean War, but now thankfully a key part of the education curriculum in the UK …
We’re not sure if this painting is still intact. The museum was reportedly damaged this week during the Russian attack on northern Ukraine. Maria Primachenko (1909–97) came to fame in the 1930s as a folk artist …
The colours in this oil painting seem so faint, fading, even vanishing, beckoning the viewer towards them. Birgir’s approach to creating artwork is delicate, whispering, heightening the senses and drawing us in …
What do you see when you look at this painting? There are no right or wrong answers to that question, of course. For me, it’s probably the swirling colours and shapes of the Absolutely Fabulous opening titles …
