EDITORIAL

Editor's Letter: Designing history

Perspective can be a difficult thing to apply to the art of our time.

EDITORIAL

From the archives

Is the work of the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen really deserving of a full-blown retrospective at the Met? Writing in December 1985, Frederick R. Brandt remembers Jacques Doucet – a couturier truly renowned for his art. 

CONTEMPORARY ART

Around the galleries

A wealth of exhibitions and fairs take place on both sides of the Atlantic this month, including the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show in New York and shows of Frink, Nicholson and Motherwell in London. 

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture

Few British artists depicted the industrial landscape of Victorian times. The best among them was John Atkinson Grimshaw, whose atmospheric works convey both the melancholy – and the beauty – of the urban existence in Britain.

MARKET REVIEW

While the eyes of the world’s Old Master dealers, collectors and curators were focused on London in July, the sale of one of the most outstanding of all early Renaissance panel paintings remaining in private hands was concluded in Germany

MARKET PREVIEW

Frieze returns to London, while grand 18th- and 19th-century decorative arts go under the hammer in New York. In London in July, the best Old Masters found strong prices, and Masterpiece, in only its second year, saw improved sales. 

Collectors’ Focus

As great wealth accumulated in the German city of Augsburg from the late 13th century onwards, the burgeoning guilds produced the most finely worked silver in Europe. Today, the market for the best 16th- and 17th-century pieces is bouyant.

A Painterly Language

George Condo’s approach to painting is underpinned by his love of Old Master works. Not content to simply adopt a painterly language of the past, the artist imbues his appropriations with a tragicomic absurdity to reveal his vision of humanity

Art and the American Dream

For the next six months, virtually every arts organisation across Los Angeles will unite for Pacific Standard Time, a Getty initiative that explores the story of art in Southern California over the last 50 years. Apollo talks to Michael Govan, CEO of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, about this unprecedented event

Blurring Boundaries

Gerhard’s Richter’s work is often divided into photo-based painting and abstraction. This division is contested in a much-anticipated restrospective opening this month at London’s Tate Modern

The Nature Of Seeing

The recent discovery of several hundred negatives among the archives of Charlotte Perriand revealed the central role that found objects – driftwood, shells and debris – played in her perception of art and design

Masters Of Precision

Industrially-inspired pieces by Jean Prouvé top the list of desirability for today’s collectors of 20th-century design. Testament to his popularity is a new exhibition in Madrid, curated by architect Norman Foster and staged in his wife Elena’s gallery. They spoke to Apollo about the relevance of Prouvé’s approach for a younger generation.

Capital design

Now in its fifth year, the Pavilion of Art & Design London is a boutique fair that offers an eclectic mix of both affordable and outstanding works

From Ruscha With Love

Ed Ruscha’s paintings are a love letter to the boulevards, film studios and gas stations of his adopted city, Los Angeles. He talks to Apollo about his working practice, the privilege of being an artist, and Pacific Standard Time, the Getty’s cultural initiative across Southern California   

Theatrics in the studio

Timothy Standring applauds a comparison of Caravaggio’s and his followers’ works that reinforces his undeniable superiority

Barbara’s homecoming

Peyton Skipwith reports on the mixed successes of the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire

Foreboding in an age of progress

John Martin’s biblically-inspired depictions of disaster were a response to the horrors of Victorian London, yet even today have a very real resonance, writes Simon Poë

Taking art to the masses

The art and politics of disability take centre stage in the Museum of Everything’s latest show. But, asks Oscar Humphries, does it only work in a department store?

What’s in a ribbon?

This meticulously researched catalogue raisonné sets a new benchmark for scholarship, writes Timothy Wilcox

Off the shelf

Apollo’s selection of recently published books on art, architecture and the history of collecting 

Fragile beauty

Andy McConnell toasts a superb, yet partial, celebration of 17th- to 18th-century English glass