The art of balding: a brief history of hairless men
Balding is really common, affecting more than 50% of men. It’s also physically inconsequential (bald men live just as long as haired men). So why, in his memoir Spare, does Prince Harry refer to his brother’s baldness as “alarming”? An…
How AI is hijacking art history
People tend to rejoice in the disclosure of a secret. Or, at the very least, media outlets have come to realize that news of “mysteries solved” and “hidden treasures revealed” generate traffic and clicks. So I’m never surprised when I…
Galleries continue to erase women artists in their blockbuster exhibitions
The National Gallery recently announced its summer 2023 exhibition, After Impressionism, claiming the show will celebrate the “towering achievements of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin and Rodin” among others. The response on social media to this announcement was largely, “where are…
Van Gogh Museum at 50: Vincent van Gogh and the art market – a brief history
Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum turns 50 in 2023. The museum, dedicated to the art of one of the most famous artists in the world, attracts over two million visitors each year. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation,…
Andrey Rublev has been called the ‘greatest Russian artist who ever lived’ – but one of his most famous works is at risk under Putin
Andrey Rublev (or Rublyov – nobody is sure how his name was pronounced) has been described as “the greatest Russian artist who ever lived”, whose work had “a clarity of composition and suave tranquillity of mood peculiarly his own”. In…
Is marriage modern? Anna Kate Blair’s novel poses the question, but doesn’t answer it
Is marriage modern? This is the circuitous premise of Australian writer Anna Kate Blair’s debut novel, The Modern, set in contemporary New York and centred on the life, half-loves and near-loves of Sophia, an Australian research fellow at MoMA (the…
‘No woman could paint’: The Story of Art Without Men corrects nearly 600 years of male-focused art criticism
Have you heard of Surrealist photographer Lee Miller? Or the highly political Dada photo-montagist Hannah Höch? 19th-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis achieved fame and recognition in her lifetime, as did 20th-century sculptor Barbara Hepworth, but none of these women artists have…
Reclaiming Dada women’s art history shouldn’t mean amplifying orientalism and sexism
Digital archives have become powerful platforms for women artists who were excluded from official art history, allowing them to claim their rightful place posthumously. This is evident in dedicated digital projects for early-to-mid 20th century avant-gardists like artist, writer and…
The boab trees of the remote Tanami desert are carved with centuries of Indigenous history – and they’re under threat
Australia’s Tanami desert is one of the most isolated and arid places on Earth. It’s a hard place to access and an even harder place to survive. But sprinkled across this vast expanse of desert, sweeping for thousands of kilometres…
In a Roman villa at the center of a nasty inheritance dispute, a Caravaggio masterpiece is hidden from the public
I teach Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, so when I was visiting Rome in January 2023, how could I not try to see a notorious villa that was up for sale and involved in a nasty inheritance dispute? The Villa…
