24 h. ago Nordic Noir review – one severed horse’s head is just not nearly enough noir

British Museum, London While some prints are suitably nasty, these mostly so-so drawings feel more like something you’d see in Ikea. Who thought they were worthy of purchase for the nation?Nordic noir. Wasn’t that a genre that had people abuzz back in the 00s? Its revival by the British Museum’s prints and drawings department as a title for an exhibition of modern and contemporary Scandinavian graphic art seems desperate. Forget our oldies like Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci – we’re all about new stuff by hot young Scandi artists! Maybe it’s understandable; after all the National Gallery is also moving in on modern art. But Nordic Noir shows just how far overeager neophilia can go wrong. A museum that specialises in history has gone fishing in contemporary waters and, like a lonely angler on an Arctic lake, has come up with absolutely nothing.The big surprise is that most of the works here are not on loan. The British Museum owns them. It has “acquired” 400 exampl...

Politics

33 h. ago 'I quit US for freezing European country and was floored when I saw coffee bill'

Jewells Chambers, an expat who originally hails from Brooklyn, New York, ditched the US for a life in the stunning "Land of Fire and Ice", but conceded there's one pitfall to living there

Politics

35 h. ago Audrey Hepburn to Salvador Dalí: Cecil Beaton’s bright young things – in pictures

A new exhibition, featuring images of Hollywood stars and war photography, shows why the ‘King of Vogue’ was one of the visionary forces of the British 20th century Continue reading...

Events

49 h. ago Bronze age gold jewellery stolen in raid on St Fagans museum in Cardiff

South Wales police issue public appeal for information after burglary at one of Wales’s most beloved museumsRaiders have broken into one of Wales’s most beloved museums and stolen gold jewellery from the bronze age.Staff at St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff said its “Wales is ” gallery was specifically targeted in the burglary, which was discovered in the early hours of Monday. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Why Dublin is the surprising city to delve into Picasso’s troubling relationship with women

Not focusing just on Picasso, but also highlighting the importance of the other people around him, a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, in partnership with the Musée Picasso in Paris, promises a new perspective on the troubled artist, writes Michael Hodges

Events

6 d. ago I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally audiobook review – the life of a hospitality legend

Richard E Grant narrates the restaurateur’s candid memoir about his life’s highs, lows and biggest regrets – including barring James CordenThe memoir from Keith McNally, the British-born restaurateur behind celebrated New York establishments including The Odeon and Balthazar, begins bleakly with its author attempting suicide at his summer house in Martha’s Vineyard in 2018. We then rewind to 20 months earlier when, on a Saturday morning, he took his youngest children to the National Gallery in London. While looking at a painting of Jesus being betrayed by Judas, “I sensed my body beginning to show signs of betraying me: a strange metallic tingling started to pinch my fingertips.” McNally was experiencing the beginnings of a stroke that would leave him with impaired speech and paralysis on one side of his body.I Regret Almost Everything sees McNally, now 74, reflecting on his health along with his long career, moving from bellboy at the Hilton hotel in London to teen actor – aged 16,...

Politics

1 week ago UK National Giant Vegetables Championships to break records in 'very difficult growing year'

Green-fingered gardening fans have been showing off their super-sized produce as they bid to win the UK National Giant Vegetables Championships.

Politics

1 week ago I visited the National Gallery of Scotland and had a magical moment

I took my mum and her friends to this show

Politics

2 w. ago LG Announces New Partnership With the National Gallery in London

LG Announces New Partnership With the National Gallery in London  LG NEWSROOM

Politics

3 w. ago Art lovers rejoice: the National Gallery can finally show us when painting really gets exciting | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Curators can now chart the seismic shifts in 20th-century art – and include more works by women and artists of colourSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreOne of my favourite paintings in the National Gallery’s collection technically breaks the rules: Paul Cézanne’s Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) was painted in the last decade of his life, its date given as about 1894-1905. It was probably finished after the gallery’s cut-off date of 1900, a cut-off the gallery has just announced it will be jettisoning.To say that I am pleased is an understatement. It always struck me as bizarre that the end date occurs just at the exact point in history when painting is about to become very interesting. Just look at the Baigneuses and what they represent: the leap towards abstraction in the representation of the human form; the composition and its unidentifiable, but un...

Politics

3 w. ago London’s National Gallery Will Officially Begin Collecting Artworks Created After 1900

London’s National Gallery Will Officially Begin Collecting Artworks Created After 1900  Smithsonian Magazine

Politics

3 w. ago Radical Harmony at the National Gallery: 'you can have just too many dots'

Radical Harmony looks at collector Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists, in an interesting homage... but there’s no escaping the dots

Politics

3 w. ago One Fine Show: “Millet, Life on the Land” at The National Gallery in London

One Fine Show: “Millet, Life on the Land” at The National Gallery in London  observer.com

Politics

3 w. ago London, a new wing will be built at the National Gallery to expand the collection. Already donated 375 million

London, a new wing will be built at the National Gallery to expand the collection. Already donated 375 million  Finestre sull'Arte

Politics

4 w. ago National Gallery accused of risking ‘bad blood’ with Tate over 20th

Sources say decision to collect ‘modern’ art could have two galleries ‘at each others’ throats’ – but others welcome moveA decision to tear up an agreement between the National Gallery and Tate, which stopped the Trafalgar Square institution from collecting works created after 1900, could create “bad blood” and a situation in which the two galleries are “at each other’s throats”, according to senior sources.The National Gallery announced the shift as part of Project Domani, which involves it receiving £375m of investment for a new wing that will usher in a “new tomorrow” at the 200-year-old institution. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago Radical Harmony review – Seurat’s shimmering visions blow away his spotty dotty imitators

National Gallery, London The tradition of neo-impressionism begun by Georges Seurat was radical, even revolutionary, but this po-faced showcase is sadly lacking its joyful dazzleGeorges Seurat had kaleidoscope eyes. He saw in limitless colours, that swarm and bubble on his canvases in galaxies of tiny dots. Choosing random, barren subjects – an empty harbour, a rock – he found endless wonder in the most banal reality. In his 1888 painting Port-en-Bessin, a Sunday, myriad blues and whites create a hazy sky and mirroring water while a railing in the foreground explodes into purple, brown and orange as if it had a lurid spotty disease. Seurat only lived to the age of 31, but he inspired an entire art movement, the neo-impressionists, who copied his “pointillist” method.Yet in a coarse-grained approach to this fine-grained art style, the National Gallery struggles to tell a different story. The neo-impressionists didn’t just paint dots, they dreamed of revolution. And by the way we shou...

Politics

4 w. ago National Gallery to build £375m new wing and lift ban on post

Institution to launch architectural competition after securing huge investment for revamp The National Gallery has lifted its ban on collecting modern paintings made after 1900 as part of a revamp that will include a new wing, made possible after it secured a landmark investment of £375m.A new part of the London gallery will be built behind the Sainsbury building as part of Project Domani– “tomorrow” in Italian – after two donations of £150m each from Michael Moritz’s Crankstart foundation and the Hans and Julia Rausing Trust. Continue reading...

Economics

4 w. ago UK's National Gallery will use $500 million in donations for a new wing and expanded collection

Britain’s National Gallery has announced it will use almost half a billion dollars in donations to open a new wing that will allow it to expand its collection into modern art

Economics

last month Marilyn Monroe centenary exhibition to feature at National Portrait Gallery

Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait will open at the London gallery in summer next year.

Politics