Art
To catch a culture thief
A vast global market in stolen and forged art and artefacts has only grown in the context of the pandemic, but technology and international policing may be catching up
The Dresser Undressed
The delicate process of writing the biography of a wary Sir Ronald Harwood
The emperors’ new clothes
Beard emerges with a portrait of the emperors’ afterlives as vivid as the busts themselves
The life-long genius of Sickert
There is more to the artist than the Camden Town years of his most famous paintings
The scatalogical subversive
Magritte’s work is no more socially potent than dog-mess on a doorstep
What’s the point of political art?
Art that shocks, offends, and amuses has a purpose beyond aesthetic: its existence is a testament to freedom of expression
Let them eat filberts
The new owner of Antoinette’s jewellery will not just get exquisite gems but a provenance that is equally perfect and poignant
Lucien Grote: Experimental Playwright
Lucien veers between lamenting modern theatre’s disdain for “truly serious work” and suspecting that it all could have gone a great deal worse
Vincent’s tragic legend restored
A new book revisits the painter’s death and returns the verdict that it was suicide after all
Getting creative with history
The promise of John-Paul Stonard’s Creation is poisoned by a revisionist agenda