The mystery of Van Dyck’s masterpiece; did Charles I hide his friend’s portrait to save himself?

The mystery of Van Dyck’s masterpiece; did Charles I hide his friend’s portrait  to save himself?

Who is taught real history anymore? I was never taught about the English Civil War at school despite studying history throughout. This gap in my knowledge about a foundational moment in British history has always felt like a thicket in the woods, through which I cannot truly see or understand where we are now. It [...]

Where should you visit after lockdown? To the home of one of the great artistic tricks of the Renaissance

Where should you visit after lockdown? To the home of one of the great artistic tricks of the Renaissance

How much will we travel in the future? I suspect that we will look back on the last few decades as the golden age of travel, when open borders and cheap flights made it easy to explore the world. But maybe this will mean that we travel with more purpose and with more care in [...]

Re-discovered Constable oil sketches to be sold at Christie’s, and what they tell us about Britain’s greatest landscape painter

Re-discovered Constable oil sketches to be sold at Christie’s, and what they tell us about Britain’s greatest landscape painter

On the second floor of the Victoria & Albert Museum is a small room tucked away near the back staircase of that vast, incredible building. In the first few years after I started working in the European Sculpture department at Christie’s I would come to the museum most weekends in an attempt to learn the [...]

‘The most daring of modern portrait painters.’ My obituary of Howard Morgan in The Telegraph

‘The most daring of modern portrait painters.’  My obituary of Howard Morgan in The Telegraph

I was fortunate to speak to the artist Howard Morgan many times over the summer before his sad and untimely death in September. Following on from my previous blog post, which encompassed my interview, I wrote an obituary of Howard for The Telegraph, which I post below. For this I spoke to Howard's wife, Sarah [...]