From subtle riffs on traditional script-based decoration to a late father’s letters to his lover, the artists vying for the Jameel prize generate deep emotion from meticulousnessWords have had outsize importance in Muslim culture since the beginning. T…
Flying colours: Photo Basel 2021 gets vibrant – in pictures
Switzerland’s first and only art fair dedicated to photography is back with vivid images of fairytales, fabrics and firepower Continue reading…
Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty review – the most sublime show of the year?
Dulwich Picture Gallery, LondonSlow, determined and infinitely hard-won, the woodcut prints of the late American artist transcend their rigid medium with visions of radiant liberationThe show of the season, if not the year, is a sequence of 36 visions …
Object lesson: Michael Craig-Martin’s paintings of Covid era items – in pictures
Lockdown was a productive time for Michael Craig-Martin: most of the works in his new show at Amsterdam’s Reflex gallery were created in its grip. He continued his longstanding project of painting everyday objects in minimal style, their clean lines an…
Drag queens to cloud surfers: highlights from Photo London 2021 – in pictures
Featuring Malcolm X, Ronald McDonald and a turtleneck-wearing demon, Photo London returns in style with 88 galleries from 15 countries Continue reading…
Rich, red and rare: Hogarth’s lady back home after 100 years
The artist’s portrait of the Georgian era’s richest woman is part of a new London showAn independent aristocrat, Mary Edwards of Kensington was a leading figure in 18th-century London. She was also thought to be the richest woman in the world.If her na…
Portrait of Queen ‘looking like a corgi’ to feature in Lucian Freud exhibition
National Gallery will mark centenary of Freud’s birth by bringing together his most important worksIt was hailed by the Guardian as the finest royal portrait for 150 years. Others thought it made the Queen look like a rugby prop forward or one of her c…
Micro marvels: Levon Biss captures seeds close up – in pictures
“As a boy, my main interest in nature was finding the tallest tree to climb,” says the British photographer Levon Biss. However, after travelling the world, his curiosity shifted to nature’s most minuscule structures. For his photo series The Hidden Be…
A fresh angle: The revolutionary gaze of Margaret Watkins – in pictures
Canadian photographer Margaret Watkins rejected traditional gender roles to become a pioneering modernist photographer with Renaissance flair Continue reading…
Delights of an Undirected Mind review – a hypersexualised hypnotic acid trip
Lisson Gallery, LondonCarnal claymation characters share exhibition space with lush silk paintings, shocking sculpture and a vast tapestry in which you are an exploding goatDelights of an Undirected Mind is a group show promisingly centring around drea…