Opinion
Opinion
3 days ago
Should art be more political?
Should art have politics at the forefront of its agenda? Artist Bob and Roberta Smith RA and critic Kelly Grovier go head to head.
Opinion
4 days ago
Jennifer Durrant RA on the richness of Sonia Delaunay’s life and art
As Sonia Delaunay’s paintings, textiles and murals come to London, painter Jennifer Durrant RA explores her vibrant work.
Opinion
4 days ago
A visit to the refurbished Musée National Picasso-Paris
Sarah Whitfield visits the newly refurbished château in Paris housing the world’s finest collection of Picasso, a tour de force in the City of Light.
Opinion
19 days ago
Podcast and video: Rubens and body image in art
Professor Germaine Greer, Dr Tom Shakespeare, Grayson Perry RA and Professor Mary Beard discuss the role art plays in creating and communicating body image.
Opinion
2 months ago
‘Francis Bacon and the Art of the Past’ at the Hermitage
Eleanor Mills travelled to St Petersburg to visit the Hermitage museum’s revelatory Francis Bacon show, and happened to come across a well-known river god too.
Opinion
3 months ago
Bon voyage: Frank Gehry Hon RA’s new building
Behind the billowing sails of Frank Gehry Hon RA’s latest building in Paris lies a shifting cargo of contemporary art, says Hugh Pearman.
Opinion
3 months ago
Inspirations: RA Schools students on their artistic heroes
As RA Schools students prepare to show their own work midway through their course in ‘Premiums’, some of the students select artists who inspire them.
Opinion
3 months ago
Turkish treasures: exploring Istanbul with Friends of the RA
The RA’s Courtney Cooke joins one of our Worldwide Art Tours, created specially by our travel partner Cox & Kings for Friends of the RA.
Opinion
3 months ago
Art sales at the RA: painting and printmaking
Painting and printmaking often feed into each other, as the first in a series of RA selling shows reveals.
Opinion
3 months ago
Podcast: Jonathan Yeo discusses Giovanni Battista Moroni
As part of a series of events surrounding the exhibition of works by Giovanni Battista Moroni, contemporary portrait painter Jonathan Yeo talks to the RA’s Tim Marlow about the portraits of the Renaissance artist.
Opinion
3 months ago
Connecting 20th-century Scottish artists to a golden Russian cigarette case in six steps
Sam Phillips investigates the six degrees of separation between an Edinburgh garden and the influence of Pop art on Communist Russia.
Opinion
3 months ago
Two books on the modern art of Paris
A family memoir involving art dealers, Nazis and looted treasure is compared to a collection of 10 essays from the 1970s and ’80s reiussed in elegant format.
Opinion
3 months ago
Podcast: A.S. Byatt discusses the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm
Novelists A. S. Byatt and Lawrence Norfolk venture together into Germany’s dark woods to discover witches, goblins, lost children and treasure.
Opinion
3 months ago
Alan Moore on William Blake’s contempt for Newton
As a major show of the revolutionary William Blake’s work opens in Oxford, Alan Moore, the legendary comic book author, delights in the artist’s subtle satire of Isaac Newton.
Opinion
3 months ago
When Morris met Warhol
The Arts and Crafts pioneer and the American Pop artist may seem an unlikely pairing, but artist Jeremy Deller draws out some intriguing links ahead of his show at Modern Art Oxford.
Opinion
3 months ago
Allen Jones: Pop Art meets Miley Cyrus?
Like many of today’s pop culture icons, Allen Jones’s work has sparked celebration and uproar. Chris Fite-Wassilak introduces an artist who made us blush 40 years before Miley.
Opinion
3 months ago
Allen Jones’s ‘Chair’: the debate
Ahead of our Provocations in Art Salon, speakers Stacy Boldrick, Lyndsey Morgan and Grace Woodward describe their first reactions to a work that has sparked everything from vandalism to real-life re-creation. What’s your view?
Opinion
3 months ago
When paint stripper was thrown over Allen Jones’s ‘Chair’
In 1986 paint stripper was thrown over Allen Jones’s sculpture ‘Chair’ (1969) during a Tate show. Alison Bracker talks to conservator Lyndsey Morgan about her experience restoring the work in the face of controversy.
Opinion
3 months ago
Guggenheim Bilbao celebrates 20 years
Two decades ago the paperwork for Guggenheim Bilbao was signed and sealed. We review the expansive exhibition that honours this landmark for an iconic institution.
Opinion
3 months ago
Grace Woodward: can a feminist love Allen Jones?
The presenter, fashion commentator, stylist and feminist explains why she identifies with Allen Jones’s controversial works and picks a few of her favourites.
Opinion
4 months ago
Is beauty an essential consideration in architecture?
Ron Arad RA and Sam Jacob discuss whether considerations of beauty are valuable in architecture, or whether they detract from more important issues.
Opinion
4 months ago
The mythical women of Marlene Dumas Hon RA
Marlene Dumas Hon RA’s paintings elevate women to mythic status. Here we celebrate the vision of a major artist as her powerful Amsterdam show comes to London.
Opinion
4 months ago
Lord Leighton RA and the Victorian ideal of female beauty
The Mexico-based businessman Juan Antonio Pérez Simón has amassed one of the world’s greatest collections of art. He talks to us about his love of Victorian art as his 19th-century masterpieces visit Leighton House Museum, the home of the former RA President.
Opinion
4 months ago
Our pick of art books for Christmas
Your essential festive gift guide.
Opinion
4 months ago
Grayson Perry RA’s portraits of Britain
The Royal Academician’s major exhibition in London turns to us, the people of modern Britain, unveiling 14 new portraits that spotlight the complexities behind our identity.
Opinion
4 months ago
Urgent appeal to save William Blake’s cottage
The country has until 28 November to donate, if the Blake Society is to transform his seaside cottage into a permanent home for the artist-poet.
Opinion
4 months ago
‘A smorgasboard of delights’: Ideas for Reimagining Mayfair
Planning expert Matthew Carmona, a panellist at the public presentation of our Reimagining Mayfair project, reflects on the intriguing ideas that arose from it.
Opinion
4 months ago
Point of view: What it’s like to sit for a portrait
As our exhibition of the great portraitist Giovanni Battista Moroni opens, the RA’s Charles Saumarez Smith reflects on the experience of having his own portrait painted.
Opinion
4 months ago
Performance art takes centre stage at Frieze London
Live art – a medium that grew out of opposition to the art market – now takes pride of place at this year’s Frieze London art fair.
Opinion
5 months ago
A breath of fresh air: Fred Cuming RA on Constable
Ahead of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Fred Cuming RA pays tribute to his work, and his lasting influence.
Opinion
5 months ago
‘Beyond Limits’ at Chatsworth House
Academicians from Antony Gormley to Bill Woodrow are on display in Sotheby’s annual sculpture show at Chatsworth House.
Opinion
6 months ago
New books bring artists and writers together
A quick look at some of the new titles which draw on the connection between art and the written word.
Opinion
6 months ago
Painting the mystery
We take a look at the latest work from the President of the RA, whose paintings embrace the transcendent powers of abstraction.
Opinion
6 months ago
Connecting the English Romantic tradition with minimalist photography in six steps
Sam Phillips investigates the six degrees of separation between J.M.W. Turner RA and Hilla Becher’s architectural photography.
Opinion
6 months ago
Are high prices good for art?
Georgina Adam says that the money has allowed artists and art lovers new opportunities, while J.J. Charlesworth argues that high prices have turned artworks into investments.
Opinion
6 months ago
Melvyn Bragg on his love of Rembrandt
As a major show of Rembrandt’s late works opens, Bragg considers the artist’s achievement as a consummate witness of life.
Opinion
6 months ago
Egon Schiele: The body electric
Although their erotic and existential angst once fell foul of public taste, Egon Schiele’s nudes have stood the test of time, argues Simon Wilson.
Opinion
7 months ago
Gego: rediscovering an extraordinary artist
As a new exhibition of her work opens at the Henry Moore Institute, ‘Radical Geometry’ co-curator Adrian Locke discusses the work of Gertrude Goldschmidt.
Opinion
7 months ago
A betrayal of trust? The Warburg Library under threat
One of the the world’s foremost academic resources, London’s Warburg Institute Library, is under threat, 80 years after being saved from the Nazis. Martin Kemp argues vehemently for its survival.
Opinion
7 months ago
Highlights from the Edinburgh Art Festival
With Edinburgh’s galleries and museums playing host to over 45 exhibitions this summer, here are our top picks of what not to miss.
Opinion
8 months ago
‘Ming: The Golden Empire’ opens at National Museums Scotland
As two exhibitions looking at the Ming Empire open in the UK this summer, we look at the wealth of objects in store.
Opinion
8 months ago
What makes a city work?
Imogen Willetts, of the RA’s Architecture Programme, reports on our recent event in which Charles Leadbeater discusses his book ‘The London Recipe: How Systems and Empathy make the City’.
Opinion
8 months ago
Bridget Riley at David Zwirner
An exhibition tracks Bridget Riley’s return to the stripe at key points in her career, writes Chris Fite-Wassilak.
Opinion
9 months ago
Think pink: Franz West at The Hepworth Wakefield
The multiple meanings of West’s witty sculptures are unravelled at The Hepworth Wakefield this summer.
Opinion
9 months ago
Mondrian squared
Two shows shine a new light on the Dutch modern master’s work.
Opinion
9 months ago
Four major exhibitions with colour at their core open this summer
Simon Wilson surveys a slew of shows, in London, Liverpool and Margate, that reveal the changing roles colour has played in art history.
Opinion
9 months ago
Inside Story: Bill Viola
The pioneering video artist talks to Laura Gascoigne about mystery, compassion and sacrifice in art, as the first of his two altarpieces commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral goes on permanent display.
Opinion
9 months ago
Should there be positive discrimination towards female artists?
Eileen Cooper RA and Helena Morrissey discuss whether art institutions need to prioritise women to achieve gender equality or whether positive discrimination is counter-productive.
Opinion
9 months ago
Kenneth Clark: A return to Civilisation
The success of the art historian, particularly as a broadcaster, is more significant than ever, says Christopher Baker.
Opinion
9 months ago
Louis Kahn at the Design Museum
Architect Trevor Dannatt RA pays tribute to Louis Kahn, whose poetic buildings are celebrated at London’s Design Museum.
Opinion
9 months ago
Win tickets to one of our ‘Looking at London’ events
What’s your favourite view of the city? In celebration of our ‘Looking at London’ series, we’re launching a competition for your best photos of the capital.
Opinion
10 months ago
Walter Sickert on stage at the Royal Opera House
Liam Scarlett’s contemporary ballet ‘Sweet Violets’ puts Walter Sickert RA’s fascination with murder centre stage.
Opinion
10 months ago
Geometry at the limit
As the RA prepares for an exhibition of 20th Century geometric abstraction in Latin America, a recent show in Buenos Aires reveals its legacy lives on.
Opinion
10 months ago
Body and Void at The Henry Moore Foundation
A new exhibition juxtaposing the works of Henry Moore with those of Antony Gormley RA, Richard Deacon RA and Anish Kapoor RA, among others, shows the enduring influence of one of Britain’s most iconic sculptors.
Opinion
10 months ago
Colour and commodity at COLLECT
This weekend the object takes centre stage at the Saatchi Gallery, as the annual COLLECT art fair gets underway.
Opinion
10 months ago
Apichatpong Weerasethakul at Anthony Reynolds Gallery
The Thai director presents a series of video installations in his first solo show at the gallery.
Opinion
10 months ago
The forces shaping London’s skyline
In light of the recent launch of the ‘Skyline’ campaign and the publication of the Farrell Review, Owen Hopkins discusses the effects on London of the deficiencies of our current planning system.
Opinion
10 months ago
Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin America
The Saatchi Gallery’s latest exhibition brings together the work of 16 contemporary South American and African artists, connecting the two continents by reminding us of the supercontinent they once comprised over 200 million years ago, before continental drift: Pangaea.
Opinion
11 months ago
Wandering Words
‘Sensing Spaces’ was a transformative exhibition for the RA in lots of ways and from the beginning we wanted to break new ground in the types of events we organised for it.
Opinion
11 months ago
Valerie Snobeck at Simon Lee
We visited the Valerie Snobeck exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery, where a new series of the American artist’s ‘peels’ are on display.
Opinion
11 months ago
Reimagining Mayfair
In partnership with the Architects’ Journal, we are launching an open call for architect-led teams to put forward bold new ideas for reimagining the area of Mayfair directly to the north of our Burlington Gardens building.
Opinion
11 months ago
Stargazing
Bailey’s latest exhibition, which opened in February at the NPG, has reopened an age-old debate about how what counts as art.
Opinion
12 months ago
In the Company of the Courtesan
Beth Schneider, Head of Learning, delves between the pages of ‘In the Company of the Courtesan’ by Sarah Dunant, our RA Book Club novel of the month.
Opinion
12 months ago
Will there be fewer fine artists in the future?
We put the question to Jennifer Zielinska, part of the RA’s attRAct programme, and Royal Academician and fine artist Cornelia Parker
Opinion
12 months ago
RA down under
Charles Saumarez Smith, our Secretary and Chief Executive, was recently in Australia to visit ‘Genius and Ambition’, an exhibition of works from our collection on show at Bendigo Art Gallery.
Opinion
12 months ago
Trading in splendour
Veronese’s dazzling paintings belied the demise of the Venetian empire.
Opinion
12 months ago
The craft that is now art
Novelist Tracy Chevalier, who curates a new exhibition of quilts, argues that this traditional activity should be accepted as a contemporary art medium.
Opinion
12 months ago
Cool, calm and collected
Why do artists collect art? We posed the question to artist collectors Damien Hirst, Tom Phillips RA, Howard Hodgkin and Georg Baselitz Hon RA, whose chiaroscuro prints are included in the ‘Renaissance Impressions’ show at the Academy.
Opinion
1 year ago
How do you make an architecture exhibition?
This is a question that has vexed countless curators over the decades. For an exhibition of art, it’s seemingly obvious. But what does this mean when you’re presenting the work of an architect?
Opinion
1 year ago
Out of Ice
Despite endless pronouncements regarding its decline and fall, ice is everywhere – at least in the art world.
Opinion
1 year ago
Martin Creed: What’s the point of it?
Deafened by a choir of incessant metronomes, almost decapitated by a huge swinging sign shouting ‘mothers’, nearly floored by a leather sofa blocking the entrance – the first three seconds of the Hayward Gallery’s latest show threatens to overwhelm (and injure).
Opinion
1 year ago
Making Painting
A new exhibition at Margate’s Turner Contemporary pairs Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler with JMW Turner
Opinion
1 year ago
The hottest tickets for 2014
London plays host to some giants of the art world over the next year. The Chairman of the RA’s Exhibition Committee, Stephen Farthing RA, picks his top five upcoming shows and celebrates innovations born of great skill and maturity.
Opinion
1 year ago
Lest we forget
Two new exhibitions of war art provide grave testament to the extent of human tragedy in world conflict.
Opinion
1 year ago
Dennis Oppenheim and Stephen Cripps
This autumn the Henry Moore Institute combines an exhibition of works by renowned American performance artist Dennis Oppenheim (1938 – 2011) with a display of archival material from lesser-known British artist, Stephen Cripps (1952-82).