Nominations have been announced for the Whitechapel gallery’s Max Mara art prize for women, the only award of its kind in the UK. Five of the country’s finest will compete for a six-month residency in Italy, followed by the chance to exhibit at the Whitechapel.

From jesmonite hippos to Jabba the Hutt with bimbos, via drawings of the subconcious and films about patricide, take a peek at the dynamic and dramatic cutting edge of art by women in the UK.

Sculpture of an Idea of a Painting of You (2009)
Christina Mackie makes wonderfully protean installations that probe the foibles of perception.

Continue reading — Max Mara art prize for women 2011: the shortlist

John Martin “Belshazzar’s Feast”

When the 19th-century visionary painter John Martin exhibited his best known canvas Belshazzar’s Feast at the British Institution in February 1821, the 8ft high and 5ft long picture had to be cordoned off to keep the crowds at arm’s length. For Belshazzar’s Feast is painting as theatre.

Against an architectural phantasmagoria conceived on a nightmarish scale, the God of the Prophet Daniel smites the tower of Babel with lightning in the distance, dooming the panic-stricken King, his court, and the seething caldron of humanity in the great court below them to oblivion. The vertiginous change in scale divides the tiny figures in foreground from even smaller ones in the middle distance, inducing something like vertigo in the stunned spectator. And yet for all its dramatic impact, it’s a difficult picture to look at for any length of time, for like all Martin’s best work, it is something of a monstrosity. I find it hard to imagine any private collector either wishing to own it or having the space to display it.

Continue reading — Heaven and Hell

A museum staff member presents a previously unknown work by the 17th century Flemish Baroque artist Anthony van Dyck ‘The Virgin and Child with Repentant Sinners’ circa 1625, which the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid discovered in one of its warehouses where the painting had been listed as a copy, in Madrid, Spain, 18 March 2011

“The Virgin and Child with Repentant Sinners” was not a copy of Van Dyck and did not deserve to be in the basement of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. This is a genuine Van Dyck from 1625, the institution took it out of storage today after many years.

The work was included in the 1964 inventory of the Academy as “an old copy of Van Dyck. “Once the painting was cleaned and restored, the authenticity of the work of art has been confirmed according to a press release from the institution released today.

Continue reading — Experts from the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts Discover Rare Van Dyck

Robbo’s 1985 piece beneath a bridge across Regent’s Canal in Camden was the oldest surviving graffiti in London.

Secured inside a wooden crate and locked in a warehouse is a painting that could cement this city’s reputation as a showcase for avant-garde art. Or as a wasteland waiting to be picked apart.

Continue reading — If You Take Street Art Off the Street, Is It Still Art?

Pablo Picasso’s Nude Green Leaves, and Bust sold for 106,482,500 USD (approximately 82,000,000 euros) to an unidentified telephone bidder, setting a new world record for any work of art sold at auction in New York City, New York, USA, 04 May 2010

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust – the Picasso painting that last year became the most expensive art work ever sold at auction – is to be publicly displayed in the UK for the first time.

Tate Modern said it would be seen in a new Pablo Picasso room following a loan by its anonymous owner.

Tate’s director, Sir Nicholas Serota, welcomed the loan. He said: “This is an outstanding painting by Picasso and I am delighted that through the generosity of the lender we are able to bring it to the British public for the first time.”

Continue reading — Record-Breaking Pablo Picasso Painting Goes on Show at Tate Modern in London

Vermeer, Jan The Music Lesson c. 1662-1665. Oil on canvas 74.6 x 64.1 cm

Dulwich Picture Gallery is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its founding by borrowing a masterpiece a month from another collection for every month of the year. The offering for March is Vermeer’s The Music Lesson, on loan from the Royal Collection. Painted between 1662 and 1665, it shows a large drawing room or music room in the late afternoon when weak sunlight filters through tinted glass windows. Standing with her back to us, a young woman plays the virginal, an early form of the spinet.

Continue reading — Vermeer: Masterpiece a Month, Dulwich Picture Gallery