Art

One of the interesting aspects of my work is to advise friends and clients on paintings. One friend buys through a well known gallery. It’s generally thought that this is an expensive way of building a collection. However it does have certain advantages in provenance and quality. You would be [...]

As an art critic and historian, I sometimes am requested to advise on collectible artists and one I recommend is Edward Seago. Born in Norwich in 1910 as the son of a coal merchant, he was entirely self-educated. He had a heart condition, first diagnosed aged 7, which forced him to spend a great [...]

Martin Gayford is amongst the best of art biographers. I read both hisYellow House which depicts the time that Van Gogh and Gauguin spent in Arles and his life of John Constable and was impressed by both. His biography of Michelangelo did not scale the heights of these two as in it he was rather [...]

There are some painters normally to be found in the Royal Academy that stay safely within their comfort zone knowing what their patrons like and producing it almost formulaically. Richard Hamilton could not  be accused of this as he was forever trying new styles and methods of painting. He has [...]

The Watts gallery which I visited yesterday with Dominic, a collector of Victorian painting, houses the work of George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), one of the most celebrated artists of his day. Watts married first the actress Ellen Terry when she was just 16 and Mary Seton Fraser herself 42 years [...]