It’s been a white-knuckle ride, but we’re finally off to France subject to our Covid ‘declaration of honour’Like many people, I’ve spent a lot of this year playing the great new game of holiday roulette, a wild ride that began for me in January, when a…
Watercolour glimpses of a Greek summer – in pictures
When the British painter Alison Jones met her Ithacan husband, it felt like destiny. “I am obsessed with Greece, heroes and enchantresses, spells and metamorphoses,” she says. Her destiny has the added benefit of an annual holiday on Ithaca, at her hus…
Sea, sand and subversive art: can Bournemouth be reborn as a culture hub?
As the vast Giant gallery opens in a former department store, the English seaside town hopes to rival Margate, Hastings …and even Santa MonicaWant culture that sails close to the wind? Well, Bournemouth might not have been the obvious place to head for…
A Syrian family finds refuge in the UK – in pictures
In the 10 years since the start of the Syrian civil war, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homeland. Photographer Rich Wiles collaborated on a five-year project with Ruba and Rami al-Hindawi and their ch…
Fires, protests and llamas: 20 photographs of the week
Simone Biles at the Tokyo Olympic Games, the anniversary of the explosion in Beirut and forest fires in California and Turkey – the most striking images from around the world this week Continue reading…
Emeka Ogboh’s Brexit lament, the brilliant Joan Eardley and a Viking hoard – the week in art
Ogboh fills Edinburgh’s Burns Monument with sound, Eardley’s seascapes get a welcome outing and a detectorist’s extraordinary find – all in your weekly dispatchEmeka Ogboh: Song of the UnionA sound installation of Robert Burns’s Auld Lang Syne, sung in…
A bride waving a flag in bombed-out Beirut: Christine Spengler’s best photograph
‘Shortly after arriving, I was kidnapped by a militia group who said I was a spy. A decade later, I went back to show life and beauty returning to the city’I spent my childhood in Madrid and I went to the Prado every week from the age of seven. I would…
Rupert bare: how the Oz obscenity trial inspired a generation of protest art
When a lewd cartoon of Rupert Bear landed the editors of the 60s counterculture paper in court, David Hockney, John Lennon, Robert Crumb and more made some of their most urgent art in response“What do you suppose is the effect intended to be of equippi…
‘We were once alive’: 100-year-old portraits from rural Sweden – in pictures
A new book showcases self-taught photographer John Alinder’s extraordinary and compelling portraits, discovered in the 1980s, of his Swedish neighbours – revealing their humanity and his artistic brilliance Continue reading…
‘Trespassing on privacy’: Bertien van Manen’s intimate images – in pictures
Over a five decade career, the Dutch photographer has travelled from the former Soviet Union to the Appalachian mountains in search of tender, everyday snapshots Continue reading…