Fitzwilliam Museum
If ‘wokeness’ is over, can someone please tell the Fitzwilliam Museum?
Optimists believe that the tide of ‘wokeness’ is now ebbing. If so, the message has not yet reached Cambridge, whose…
The art inspired by the 1924 Paris Olympics was a very mixed bag
George Orwell took a dim view of competitive sport; he found the idea that ‘running, jumping and kicking a ball…
From colander to bed of nails
I first became aware of the work of Marcelle Hanselaar in a mixed exhibition at the Millinery Works in Islington.…
Remarkable and imaginative: Fitzwilliam Museum’s The Art of Food reviewed
Eating makes us anxious. This is a feature of contemporary life: a huge amount of attention is devoted to how…
Why it’s bad for potters to think of themselves as artists
A friend of mine once owned a vase by the potter Hans Coper — until, that is, her teenage son…
I spy
Where was Degas standing as he sketched his ‘Laundresses’ (c.1882–4)? Did he watch the two women from behind sheets hanging…
Old masters
The Fitzwilliam Museum is marking its bicentenary with an exhibition that takes its title from Agatha Christie: Death on the…
Watery depths
I learnt to splash about in watercolour at my grandmother’s knee. Or rather, sitting beside her crouched over a pad…
Artists’ little helpers
A 19th-century London artists’ supplier named Charles Roberson offered imitation human beings for sale or rent, with papier-mâché heads, soft…
The new Turner?
What happens to an artist’s reputation when he dies? Traditionally, there was a period of cooling off when the reputation,…
