Art
A Show About Delacroix’s Influence Is Sorely Missing His Work
LONDON — Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art suffers from too few of Delacroix’s works and far too much of the “modern art.”
Olivia McEwan
Olivia McEwan is a trained art historian and freelance writer focusing on the London art world. She is also a practising artist, lending a keen eye and understanding of painterly technique which informs her criticisms of historical and emerging arts.
Art
How Modern Gardens and Painting Developed in Tandem
LONDON — In 2015 the Royal Academy of Arts faced a critical backlash against its last major painting blockbuster, Rubens and His Legacy, which featured very little Rubens and an awful lot of tenuous filler. Thank goodness, then, that the museum is back on track with its new survey, Painting the Mode
Art
Marveling at Goya's Haunting Portraits
LONDON — When was the last time you saw a survey of one artist that could dispel completely the need for filler?
Art
Tate Modern’s Absorbing but Haphazard Look at Global Pop Art
LONDON — The World Goes Pop is an exhilarating collection filled with fizzing energy, so its curatorial messiness can be forgiven.
Art
A Barbara Hepworth Retrospective Hampered by Her Male Contemporaries
LONDON — Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World marks one of the last exhibitions backed by the outgoing Tate Britain director, Penelope Curtis.
Art
The Dealer Who Made Impressionism Famous
LONDON — Impressionism is easily one of, if not the most, accessible and universally enjoyed art movements.
Art
A Rubens Exhibition That's All Fat, No Muscle
LONDON — The term “blockbuster” is defined by the equation: major name or subject + major loans = major ticket sales.
Art
Nirvana for Lovers of Victoriana
LONDON — A Victorian Obsession is a touring exhibition of the largest collection of Victorian painting outside Great Britain: 52 works of consistently staggering technical quality and significance, owned by Mexican businessman Juan Antonio Pérez Simón.
Art
A Fresh Look at Late Rembrandt in London
LONDON — Rembrandt: the Late Works is that truly rare event: a study focusing on an artist whose quality of output is so universally lauded that is fully supported by staggering loans never previously shown in this combination or indeed in the same country.