The reigning king of Antwerp since the 17th century was an absolute genius when it came to painting, but also ambitious, dishonest and filthy rich. We’re talking, of course, about Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). In his hometown, the studio where he worked is...
‘This is not a pipe’. It appears on t-shirts, mugs, and in advertising slogans and has become the biggest cliché  of modern art. René Magritte (1898-1967), who painted the pipe in 1929 accompanied by the famous line ‘ceci n’est pas...’  or 'this is not...' has earned...
Long before Andy Warhol dreamed of being an art-making machine and more or less managed it with his silkscreens on canvas, Antwerp’s Pierre Paul Rubens (1577-1640), a legend in a different art genre, designed his own great machine for pumping out paintings. On 6th and...
For a very long time they were stowed out of sight in a box under a bed somewhere in England. This is the story of 50 etchings with an estimated value of £1.4 million by one of the most important masters in the history of art, a giant of the Dutch golden age,...
Since in New York there are modern and contemporary auctions every day this week featuring emotion, Â why not go along and see some genuine masterpieces that are not for sale. Â The curatorial world is shaped, in varying degrees, by its trends. The most recent trend,...
It's a story that has got the entire old master world  talking. And it begins like the best art market myths: in 2014 a family in Toulouse, in the south-west of France, while doing work on their house, discovered a  canvas in the attic which appeared to be from the...
Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) is true a giant of painting from the second half of the 20th century but has yet to receive the full credit he deserves. This is especially apparent when compared with his fellow countryman Gerhard Richter (born 1932) who can properly be...
 Though he’s a towering figure in the history of French art, it’s the Prado in Madrid that is currently exhibiting almost his entire catalogue of works. Georges de La Tour (1593-1652) was a painter from the Lorraine region whose work was highly regarded in his time....
It’s the most eagerly anticipated exhibition this season in Paris. 230 works dedicated to an unclassifiable, singular and exceptional artist, and a major figure in German modern art: Paul Klee. The show’s curator Angela Lampe has pulled off a small miracle, creating a...
Who would possibly make a comparison between Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) also called Le Douanier Rousseau, the retired Paris customs officer considered by the critics of his days as a harmless weekend painter, and Paolo Uccello (1397-1475), one of the foremost figures...
In art there are those mythical places believed to have changed the course of history. Until the nineteenth century, if you considered yourself a serious painter you were obliged to make an initiatory journey to Italy on the trail of the Renaissance and Ancient Rome....
The Norwegian art world’s undisputed star is a man who dragged himself through life in a state of existential malaise. His name is Edvard Munch (1863-1944). In his native city, Oslo, the museum that is devoted to him houses an immense treasure, an extraordinary number...