The estuary of any river is often a bleak and moody place, where sea and river merge, and the Thames is no exception. The exhibition Estuary (until 27 Oct) at the Museum of London in Docklands celebrates the museum’s first decade, and if you haven’t yet seen this offshoot of the London Wall museum, it…
One of the stars of the National Gallery’s Vermeer show, The Guitar Player, is usually on permanent display, free, in a room which includes work by Frans Hals and one of the most moving self-portraits Rembrandt ever made. Their home is the glorious Robert Adam house, Kenwood, on Hampstead Heath, which is just round the…
A name that brings to mind the grand landscapes of America is photographic pioneer Ansel Adams, who grew up with a Kodak in his hands. As an awkward boy, barely into his teens, he was capturing the great wilderness areas of his country, and continued throughout his long life to capture the magnificence of nature,…
Soviet oligarchs may take up riotous living once they settle in the West, but the Soviet Union isn’t a place one really associates with levity. The full irony of the title Gaiety is The Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union: New Art from Russia, however, doesn’t actually hit one until you have seen the extended…
It’s hard to fathom why Zeng Fanzhi is hailed as one of China’s superstar artists when you see his enormous paintings at Gagosian’s Britannia Street gallery (until Jan 19). Nine may be a lucky number, but it leaves the walls looking quite bare in what is one of his first showings in the West. True,…
South African artist William Kentridge is featured in a touring show from the Hayward Gallery, which travels across the UK but also in what seems to me the first really successful use of the circular walls of the Tate Modern’s Tanks: I am not Me, the Horse is not Mine (until 20 Jan). In Kentridge’s…
Tate Britain promises a radical new interpretation of the Pre-Raphaelites with their exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde (until 13 Jan), but judging by the throngs of viewers no such review is needed. The public obviously adores them anyway, but I have to admit to being one of the cynics who finds them often little more than…
At the time of the National Gallery’s blockbuster Leonardo exhibition I remember thinking how I’d love to see more of the Queen’s collection of his drawings, not knowing I’d have that pleasure so soon. His anatomical drawings wouldn’t have been my first choice, but Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist, at the Queen’s Gallery until 7 October,…
Every great city has its own river, and wars are fought and lost around them. London has the Thames, and from the time the Romans forded it, it has been pivotal to the city’s history. Historian David Starkey has taken the river’s royal connections and woven a fascinating tale of how this stretch of water…
On the Olympic site, South African Neville Gabie has been making his presence felt as the official Olympic artist in residence. Gabie, who studied in London, produced a variety of artworks and projects during his 15-month residency, responding to the physical changes of the site and the huge range of jobs, skills and personalities that have delivered…
London Letter 