Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World, at The Art Institute, Chicago is proof positive that finally, the modernist French artist is receiving the recognition he deserves. friend of mine who once spent a summer in Paris went virtually every day to the Musée d’Orsay to see it.
However, when the artist first painted this hypnotic study of three sinuous workmen planing the floor of his studio in Paris, it was widely scorned. In 1875, France’s most prestigious art exhibition, the Salon, dismissed it out of hand. The jurors were outraged by this portrayal of semi-dressed working-class people, deriding it as “vulgar subject matter”.
Now, most people see the painting as a stone-cold masterpiece. Underscoring Caillebotte’s fascination with working people, it is a spellbinding, deeply moving illustration of men at labour.
The picture features in the exhibition Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World, at The Art Institute, Chicago (*). Including more than 120 works – paintings, works on paper, photographs and other ephemera from throughout Caillebotte’s career – the show charts why this previously underrated painter deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as his more celebrated friends…
A living archive of LGBTQ+ culture, art, and activism
Chicago’s vibrant history of queer art and activism finally gets its due in a major new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA). Titled City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago, the show traces over four decades of radical creative practice in the city – from the AIDS crisis of the […]
Like many retirees, Rafael Nadal has been freed up to pursue his ambitions as a golfer. Unlike most, he reportedly plays off scratch. At the 25th edition of the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid, he spoke to Molly McElwee about life after tennis. He discussed the current turmoil in the men’s game and his […]
Sitting in his studio, surrounded by a lifetime of iconic prints, legendary New York photographer Joel Meyerowitz reflects on a remarkable 60-year career. Now 87, he’s curating a retrospective of his life’s work – a journey that helped redefine street photography and champion colour photography as fine art.
“I see things differently now,” he says with a smile. “Different juncture points. I get to reassess the meaning I once gave an image.”
His images are featured in collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the New York Public Library. Credited with elevating colour photography when black and white dominated, Meyerowitz has always stayed true to his vision while embracing new methods.
COLOUR VS BLACK & WHITE
One key theme of his 2024 Tate Modern exhibition, A Question of Color, was his early practice of shooting scenes in both black and white and colour, allowing him to explore how mood and meaning shift with the medium.
“You don’t realise the importance until much later. Time reveals what a photograph was really about.”
– Joel Meyerowitz
Although secretive about a new digital project, he is no stranger to tech. He owned one of the first 100 Apple computers, courtesy of Steve Jobs. “No serial number,” he chuckles. “I lost it to a print guy who owed the mob.”
NEW YORK: THE ETERNAL MUSE
No place has shaped Meyerowitz’s eye like New York City.
“It’s a soundscape, an emotional scape,” he says. “The city gives you something visual, energetic, mental, physical, spiritual, social, even sexual. It’s perfect for a street photographer.”
In the wake of 9/11, he defied Mayor Giuliani’s ban on photography at Ground Zero. Friendly NYPD detectives, believing history deserved documentation, gave him a genuine badge marked “Mayoral Photographer,” granting him full access.
Joel Meyerowitz, New York City, 2001. From Aftermath, 2001.
The result: over 8,500 images of Ground Zero, capturing the devastation, resilience, and sorrow of post-9/11 New York. Only 400 made it into Aftermath, his powerful book documenting that historic moment.
MASTERING THE ART OF WAITING
For this project, Meyerowitz blended 35mm, medium format, and large format cameras – skills honed over decades on the streets and in projects like Cape Light and Empire State.
For Empire State (1978), he took inspiration from Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: “What if the Empire State Building became my Mount Fuji?”
With tripod and camera, he patiently waited for New York life to unfold around the skyscraper, capturing the fleeting dance between people and place.
BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT: CAPE LIGHT
But it was Cape Light (1976) that secured his place in photographic history. On Cape Cod, he finally proved colour photography could be as serious and artistic as black and white. “Cape Cod is a sand bar 60 miles out to sea,” he explains. “The air is pure. I wanted to photograph light itself—the way it plays, bounces, and sculpts.”
Joel Meyerowitz, Provincetown, 1976. From Cape Light, 1976.
Using an 8×10 view camera, Meyerowitz transformed the everyday into something transcendent. “It was a magic theatre on ground glass. I wasn’t chasing Edward Hopper, but maybe it was the same light he saw – and I saw it my way.”
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY: HIS FIRST LOVE
Despite the acclaim, the street remains his true home. “It’s about instantaneous human connection,” he says.
The turning point? Watching Robert Frank photograph two girls for a booklet in 1962. Meyerowitz, then a young art director, was mesmerised. “Frank just knew when the telling gesture would happen. I thought: ‘this is photography – the art of stopping time’.”
Joel Meyerowitz, New York, 1963.
JOEL MEYEROWITZ’S LASTING LEGACY
From vibrant street scenes to haunting images of Ground Zero, Joel Meyerowitz has spent six decades capturing the soul of cities, the play of light, and the quiet drama of everyday life. His legacy continues to shape the future of street and colour photography.
Author: Andrew Hildreth
This is a reduced version of our exclusive interview with Joel Meyerowitz. You can read it in full in the summer issue of I-M Inquisitive Minds. Secure your copy, HERE.
Lead image: Joel Meyerowitz, New York City, 1976. From Empire State, 1978. Portrait of Joel Meyerowitz by Joel Arles, 2016.
At 29, Daniil Medvedev has achieved more than most tennis professionals dream of: 20 ATP Tour-level singles titles, including the 2021 US Open and 2020 ATP Finals, and a career-high world No. 1 ranking. Our Editor-in-Chief, Julia Pasarón, speaks to the Russian champion and Bovet ambassador about his passion for tennis, family life, and luxury watches.
THE MAND BEHIND THE RACKET
In person, Medvedev is charming, engaging, and quick to laugh – far removed from the calculating strategist or the sometimes fiery competitor we’ve seen on court. “Maybe that’s where the ‘unruly’ side of my game comes from,” he jokes.
A self-proclaimed family man, Medvedev credits his wife, Daria Chernyshkova, whom he married in 2018, as the catalyst behind his meteoric rise. “She played tennis when she was younger, so she knows what it takes. She encouraged me to focus more on the sport and less on things that don’t matter. If you don’t fully focus on tennis, you lose.”
Her support paid off. In 2020, Medvedev became the only player ever to defeat the world’s top three-ranked players in the same ATP Finals tournament. In 2021, he famously beat Novak Djokovic in the US Open final, denying the Serbian great a calendar Grand Slam. In 2022, after another Australian Open final appearance, he became the first man outside the ‘Big Four’ to claim the world No. 1 ranking since Andy Roddick in 2004.
The arrival of his daughters, Alisa in 2022 and Victoria earlier this year, brought new joy – and challenges. “When you have kids, you can’t practise from morning till night. You want to spend time with your family,” he reflects. “But these are the best moments. There’s less time, but it’s more precious.”
Balancing fatherhood with life on tour feels familiar to Medvedev. Growing up in Moscow, he juggled school and tennis from the age of six. “Sometimes I’d do homework in the car while my dad drove me to practice. It was tough but prepared me for the constant travel now.” The social skills he picked up on the move still serve him well, and he remains close to friends from those early years.
Any regrets about missing out on teenage parties? None. “When you’re 18 or 19 on the circuit, you go out when you can – just not the night before a match!” he laughs. “So no, I didn’t miss anything. No regrets.”
His career took a pivotal turn when his family relocated to the south of France to advance his training. “It was hard to leave friends behind, but the right decision for my tennis.”
On court, Medvedev’s intensity sometimes spills over, famously resulting in occasional outbursts. “I always go out to win. When things don’t go well, frustration builds… but I’ve been working on staying calmer,” he admits with a shrug. His charisma, however, wins crowds over, and he enjoys connecting with fans: “It’s fun to interact—it relaxes me and the public.”
A PARTNERSHIP FORGED IN EXCELLENCE
Daniil Medvedev is wearing a Bovet x Pininfarina Aperto 1 Blue, a fully skeletonised titanium piece, only 63gr in weight, with a seven-day power reserve.
His hunger for excellence drew the attention of Bovet owner Pascal Raffy when Medvedev was just 23. Their instant rapport sparked a long-term partnership between the champion and the historic Swiss watchmaker. “We felt a family connection,” Daniil recalls. “Being a Bovet ambassador makes me proud. There’s always risk in these things – you never know what will happen – but this turned out great.”
Six years on, the relationship is stronger than ever, with Medvedev sporting some of Bovet’s most exceptional creations. His favourite? The Ottantasei Tourbillon, crafted with design legend Pininfarina. “It was my first Bovet—it feels like my lucky charm,” he smiles. “It’s so light, so transparent. You can see everything thanks to the sapphire crystal.”
Like most pros, he doesn’t wear a watch on court. “Every detail matters in tennis. I never trained wearing one, so it’d be strange to start now, and Bovet pieces are too precious to risk damaging during play.” Off court, though, it’s a different story. “I love knowing no one else at dinner has the same watch. That’s special.”
Other favourites include the Récital 26 Chapter Two Tourbillon and the Récital 12. “The craftsmanship is incredible. I tried screwing some parts together at the Château de Môtiers—impossible! Everything’s tiny.” Today, he’s wearing the Bovet Aperto 1: skeletonised, ultra-lightweight, and beautifully architectural.
From the left, the Bovet Récital 12 in titanium features the collection’s off-centre dial, housed in a 40mm case with an integrated bracelet. The Bovet x Pininfarina Aperto 1, in yellow, showcases its intricate mechanics through an open-worked dial.
Would he ever design a watch himself? He grins. “Maybe in the future – but not yet.”
For now, Medvedev remains laser-focused on his tennis and family. Currently ranked No. 10 in the world, he’s determined to climb back to the top. “I want to play until my body says, ‘no more.’ I love to win.”
A more detailed interview with Daniil Medvedev is available in the summer issue of I-M Inquisitive Minds. Secure your copy, HERE.
Another Bovet watch that you shouldn’t miss is the new Récital 30, the only mechanical watch to date that automatically adjusts for all known time zones, including the quirks of daylight saving time worldwide.
In 1971, Bob Dylan sang the classic track, “When I Paint My Masterpiece.” Fifty-four years later, the multitalented artist will be hoping he has achieved that end with his captivating new exhibition of paintings entitled Point Blank at the Halcyon Gallery in London.
Bob Dylan has long since established himself as one of the most important musicians of the last century, selling 125 million albums and picking up 10 Grammys. He has also been lauded for his writing, having won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. In addition, he is celebrated in a well-regarded, Oscar-nominated biopic, A Complete Unknown.
But now, Bob Dylan has added a completely new string to his guitar by becoming an acclaimed painter. In so doing, he has proved himself a master of many different artistic trades.
From the left: Bob Dylan, Young Man with a Horn, 2021-22; Zurich (Strange Weather), 2022-24; Flower Power, 2022-24.
Point Blank highlights the artist’s natural gift as a storyteller. It features 97 original works on paper portraying cityscapes, figures playing instruments, couples, and sportsmen and women.
Bob Dylan has created what he calls, “Living, breathing entities that have emotional resonance, colours used as weapons and mood setters, a means of storytelling. The idea was not only to observe the human condition, but to throw myself into it with great urgency.”
Some of the works have been refashioned as blue, red and neutral monochromatic studies, alluding to Pablo Picasso’s early Blue Period.
Kate Brown, creative director at the Halcyon, observes: “These works on paper feel like memories, intangible windows into the life and imagination of one of the greatest storytellers who ever lived.
Bob Dylan paints couples frequently, often in scenes reminiscent of a small-town America from the mid-20th century, reflecting his own personal experiences and a sense of nostalgic Americana.
“People who attend the exhibition will discover that they provoke stories from our imagination. We consider the circumstances of the protagonists and ponder our movement through the spaces that the artist depicts.”
According to the artist, his artwork is a way to “relax and refocus a restless mind” amid his relentless touring schedule. He clearly finds the process therapeutic. While painting, he continues, “I’d lose track of time completely. An hour or two could go by and it would seem like only a minute. Not that I thought that I was any great drawer, but I did feel like I was putting an orderliness to the chaos around.”
To those critics who contend that Bob Dylan should stay in his lane, I would respond that his paintings are suffused with emotion and surprisingly strong.
The reviewer Jonathan Jones agrees, arguing that: “A real artist made these drawings and paintings. Their integrity is compelling. They demand to be looked at, for their awe and wonder at the beauty and grandeur of being alive. These are the pictures of a true poet.”
This striking exhibition should ensure that as a painter, Bob Dylan is no longer a complete unknown.
Author: James Rampton
Bob Dylan: Point Blank The Halcyon Gallery, 148 New Bond St, London, W1S 2TRTo 6th July 2025 More information and opening times, HERE.
Lead image: Portrait of Bob Dylan. All images courtesy of Halcyon Gallery.
V&A Dundee digs into the inspirational power of gardens
Derek Jarman made some beautiful artistic films, including Caravaggio, The Tempest and Orlando. Many people, however, believe that his greatest artistic achievement was the exquisite garden he created at his home, Prospect Cottage, in Dungeness, Kent.
Indeed, the director, who died in 1994, once said about it: “Every flower is a triumph. I’ve had more fun from this place than I’ve had with anything else in my life. I should have been a gardener.”
Jarman’s garden is a glorious flowering of lavender, daffodils, sea holly, yellow rocket, poppies, sea kale, viper’s bugloss and teasels. These blooms enrich the sparse shingle beach on which the former fisherman’s cottage sits. Hard by the Dungeness nuclear power station, the property is constructed from tarred boards and has striking yellow window frames. Studded with sculptures fashioned from driftwood, its garden is as notable for being an artwork as a horticultural accomplishment.
Left: Derek Jarman, Prospect Cottage Garden at Dungeness, Kent, UK, designed from 1986 Photo: Howard Sooley, 1993. Right: Piet Oudolf Garden at Vitra Design Museum. Photo courtesy of Vitra Design Museum.
This extraordinary space is one of the key exhibits highlighted in Garden Futures: Designing with Nature, a new show at V&A Dundee. The colourful exhibition guides visitors through the history of gardens and garden design. Emphasising the power of horticulture to inspire, it covers the 20th century to the present day. It also examines the future of these magical spaces.
Featuring pioneering projects by such multicultural innovators as Jarman, Piet Oudolf, Mien Ruys and Eden Project Scotland, the exhibition cultivates the notion that a garden is much more than a haven. It is also an outdoor laboratory where theories about a more sustainable future can be put to the test.
Including an eclectic collection of objects, paintings, textiles, sculpture, interior design, fashion, drawings and photographs, the show underscores how the appeal of gardens has proved inspirational to artists, writers and designers such as Jamaica Kincaid, Duncan Grant and William Morris.
Community-led projects in Scotland, such as Oban’s Seaweed Gardens, are on show, alongside work by Charles Jencks and the garden designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd at Maggie’s Centre, Dundee.
This flourishing exhibition bears out one of Jarman’s other assertions: “Some gardens are paradises.”
Author: James Rampton
Garden Futures: Designing with Nature V&A Dundee 1 Riverside Esplanade, Dundee DD1 4EZ 17th May 2025 – 25th January 2026 More information and tickets, HERE.
Lead image: Stefano Boeri, Bosco Verticale, Milan, 2014
Sebastião Salgado is a man of conviction, especially when it comes to Sebastião Salgado’s photography. You would have to give up a career as an economist with a doctorate from the University of Paris and a job offer from the United Nations, and decide that the world viewed through the lens of a camera is the one you want to pursue. In retrospect, Salgado was right, but at the time it was a momentous decision to make.
Now, at the age of 77 [2022] and with five decades of crisscrossing the planet to photograph his self-chosen subject matter, Salgado is looking to hang up his camera bag and concentrate on showcasing all the work he has amassed in his career through a series of exhibitions and books. Over half a century, his photographs have shed light on the plight of workers in the very worst of conditions, revealed the last pristine places for life on the planet, and documented the extremes of our lives in every corner of the globe.
He has earned multiple accolades and received widespread recognition along the way. Sebastião Salgado was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant in 1982, given a Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992, and received the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in 1993. In 2001, UNICEF appointed him Goodwill Ambassador, and in 2016, he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts at the Institut de France. He is rightly lauded as a world citizen who cares about the planet upon which we all reside.
His final project, Amazonia, was extraordinarily ambitious in its scope and intent; nothing less than to discover and photograph some of the last people on the planet who have yet to come into contact with what we loosely describe as the advanced world. For Salgado, the project was of particular importance; not only did it involve his home country of Brazil, but equally a consideration of what is ailing the planet as a whole. In photographing and documenting some of the last pristine and unspoiled places on earth, Salgado is hoping that the rest of humanity could learn from their example.
Sebastião Salgado believes that to a large extent, the developed world (for want of a term) has lost its way. Part of the problem with the current crisis on our planet – not only COVID but also climate change and the shift in resources across countries – is that humans have forgotten how to live in a “natural state”. As part of his economic training, Salgado learnt that the consideration about humanity and the problems of being in a state of nature go back to the debates in the 18th century in moral philosophy between David Hume and Adam Smith.
“We have lost our origins completely, we have become a kind of alien. We are living in areas where we spend increasingly more in a race to live better.”
– Sebastião Salgado
According to Salgado, the natural state is the one to which humans should return. He explained that “We have lost our origins completely, we have become a kind of alien. We are living in areas where we spend increasingly more in a race to live better. We don’t understand anymore the basic rules that guarantee the survival of our species and which were based on the idea of community, solidarity, and spirituality, on hearing the laws of nature, behaving as a function of the planet, being part of the planet.”
Visiting and recording what the tribes were telling him provided an education on how the (so-called) advanced world can return to a more natural state in tune with the planet. “We started receding the Amazon all over and as a consequence, forcefully brought these tribes into contact with Western society. They are the prime examples of humanity. We have a lot to learn from them about how to survive on our planet rather than at its expense. I believe we are both in danger and the danger. There is a way to go back, but only if we realise we need to go about things in a different way.” Salgado warns that the planet will survive the abuse we are inflicting upon it but we, humans, will not.
The question remains as to whether showing these primitive societies to ours through his work may endanger the very subject matter that he is photographing. Salgado does not think this is the case. “I don’t believe anyone, on seeing the pictures, will have a wish to go to these places, but instead, will understand the need to protect them. If that idea doesn’t come out of my pictures, then I’ve made a huge mistake.”
The Rise to Fame
Salgado rose to prominence as a photographer and as a humanitarian for his series on workers around the world. Most famously, the collection of images of a gold mine in Brazil called Serra Pelada, where the metal is carried from the mine to the surface by men with baskets on their backs, the scale of the operation reducing human beings to hive insects. It was his background as an economist that helped him to understand his subject matter. “It was the empathy for an underdeveloped culture. Economics gave me a basis for analysis, for synthesis, to go to a place and assess what was relevant for locating and finding the story that was important.”
Equally, photographing workers brought Salgado back in touch with the one product that has played a continuous role in his life: coffee. Paradoxically, Salgado does not drink coffee; he loves everything about it: the fruit, the flowers on the trees, the smell, but not the roasted liquid taste. He began work as an economist for the International Coffee Organization, often traveling to Africa on missions for the World Bank, where he first started taking photographs seriously. Later, with his career firmly established, he was invited by Illy to photograph coffee workers around the world. The project was combined with planting trees within the coffee plantations in Brazil as a conservation initiative. In the end, he spent about a decade photographing the coffee industry and the workers within them.
One of the key elements that contributes to the visual impact of his work is the continued use of black and white. The technology of the camera might have changed over these five decades, but not the monochromatic form of the world before him. Salgado started off with a Leica and moved on to medium format cameras when he was photographing Genesis, a project about the remaining pristine areas of the world.
After 9/11, there were issues with X-ray machines and film negatives, so slowly Salgado switched to digital, which became his only camera from 2008. The grainy texture that was part of black and white film is now added back digitally by a small company in France.
What Salgado appreciates about the new technology is not just the image quality, but the fact that the viewfinder can be set to black and white, “I look in black and white what will become black and white, and what I have always seen my whole life long in black and white.”
On Reflection
Despite his success as a photographer and as an environmental campaigner, he never planned the course of his life. “If you look at my body of work retrospectively, I feel there is a kind of coherence in what I’ve done as a photographer, but not as the result of any real rational choice, I just chose a way of life and my photography is the result of it.”
The decision to become a photographer was not an easy one. At the time, back in the early 1970s, Sebastião had a good career working at the World Bank, living in London in a large apartment on Queensway (just off Hyde Park), and driving a sports car – a red Triumph TR6. He gave it all up to be a photographer. Sebastião recalls the pivotal moment: “At the beginning of October 1972, I came to London with Lélia, my wife, and we went to Hyde Park. We took one of the small boats in the Serpentine Lake, and I remember being in the middle of the lake discussing whether I was to keep my life as an economist or go into photography.” He chose the latter.
It was a decision from the heart; the emotions from seeing the world through the camera’s lens, “to see things that were amazing, beautiful, things that would strike me, and it was possible to freeze them in an image. It is a miracle; it is something compelling.” Salgado discovered photography very late. “We were in France, and I was finishing my PhD in economics when I looked for the first time in my life through the viewfinder of a camera, and my life changed forever.”
Author: Andrew Hildreth
Signed collector prints by Sebastião Salgado are available in the UK exclusively from NB Pictures. Contact: Neil Burgess at neil@nbpictures.com
Sebastião Salgado’s documentary photography captures the essence of human resilience and environmental urgency – a tradition deeply rooted in American photography. Discover more about this visual legacy HERE.
This May, Firsts London returns to the Saatchi Gallery with a burst of colour, curiosity, and craftsmanship. The theme? Books in Bloom – a celebration of all things botanical in the world of rare books.
From ancient herbals to avant-garde floral art books, over a hundred rare book dealers from around the globe will gather to showcase the intertwined histories of books and botany. It’s the literary companion to the Chelsea Flower Show, blooming just down the road – but with more vellum and fewer tulips.
Expect everything from medicinal manuscripts to pressed flower albums, poetic tributes to roses, and gorgeously illustrated plant encyclopaedias. Botanical books tell a story far richer than just plants on a page. They chart centuries of exploration, science, superstition, art – and obsession.
Once used to treat fevers and fend off spirits, early plant drawings became tools of classification, trade, and desire. By the Victorian age, they were full-blown objects of beauty, their detailed engravings and watercolours capturing the global explosion of flora newly ‘discovered’ and imported.
Justin Croft Antiquarian has brought an exquisite edition of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, illustrated by Dominique Jouvet-Magron.
Literature, too, is full of gardens and green things. From Shakespeare’s enchanted woods to The Secret Garden, writers have long used plants as metaphors for mystery, transformation, and escape. And then there are the curiosities: seaweed albums, floral bindings, sprigs of lavender tucked between the pages. Ephemera that survived centuries.
This year’s fair partners with Chelsea Physic Garden, whose historic library of botanical and taxonomic treasures is featured in the fair’s artwork.
Among the highlights:
Peter Harrington Rare Books: Admiral Nelson’s personal collection – including weather logs, letters, and scribbled notes.
HS Rare Books and Maps: A visual feast with Jacobus Publicius’s Ars oratoria (1482), showcasing the first printed visual alphabet and the first printed chess board, as well as a stunning first edition of Gessner’s Encyclopaedia.
Justin Croft Antiquarian: Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, illustrated with sultry flair by Jouvet-Magron.
Ashton Rare Books: A pristine set of the first edition of Nabokov’s Lolita.
First printed chess board from Jacobus Publicius’s Ars Oratoria (1482) and a sample from Gessner’s Encyclopaedia depicting marine monsters.
Foster Books: A jewel-like illuminated history of Hampton Court Palace, bound in maroon morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.
Shapero Rare Books: A veritable garden in a chest – including the 1613 Hortus Eystettensis, Lydia Byam’s long-lost floral paintings from Antigua, and the Duke of Marlborough’s Chinese watercolour album.
delicate Chinese watercolours of native blooms.
KEEL Row Bookshop: A pictorial suffragette’s protest napkin (yes, really), a powerful paper relic from a different kind of flower power, by Sarah “Auntie” Burgess. Burgess was a printer and manufacturer of paper goods, including souvenir napkins and other novelty items. She is known for creating souvenir napkins for major events, including the Votes for Women rally on 23 July, 1910.
From the left, a copper engraving print from the 1613 Hortus Eystettensis by Basilius Besler; an illustration from the Duke of Marlborough’s Chinese watercolour album; Sarah “Auntie” Burgess’s pictorial suffragette souvenir napkin from 1910.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
Whether you’re a seasoned collector or just curious, Firsts London is a rare chance to get up close with the beautiful, the strange, and the storied. If you’re in town, make time to wander the Saatchi Gallery – and let yourself get lost among the blooms.
Author: Julia Pasarón
FIRSTS: London Rare Books Fair Saatchi Gallery Duke of York’s Square, King’s Road London SW3 4RY
Britain's most famous luxury car marque brings woodland magic to London Craft Week
At this year’s London Craft Week (12–18 May 2025), Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is bringing a captivating artistic display that reimagines the British countryside in exquisite detail and craftsmanship.
Created by artisans at the marque’s Goodwood headquarters, the triptych artwork draws on the flora and fauna of the British Isles, presenting a woodland scene across three evocative moments: day, evening, and night. The centrepiece is a kingfisher, depicted in each panel using a range of complex techniques, transforming leather, wood, metal and thread into an immersive natural tableau.
Chloe Dowsett, Bespoke Specialist at Rolls-Royce, explained the concept behind the triptych. “We wanted the three panels to talk to each other, to be connected,” Chloe explained. “The reeds at the bottom of the first panel, which are made of metal, in rusty red and mandarin orange, are matched in the second panel with grasses in leather dyed in similar hues.”
Paul Ferris, also a Bespoke Specialist at the marque, gave further details about the cohesive nature of the artwork. “For the first time we had the chance to create something that had nothing to do with cars, but using our specialised knowledge which requires all decorative elements in a car to come together for the customer.”
An example of that expertise applied to the triptych is the tree in the third panel and the fox, which showcase the mastery and artistry of the artisans at Rolls-Royce when it comes to marquetry, embroidery and experimenting with colour. Hanging from a metal tree overlaid with marquetry overflowing from this panel, in the central one, we find a squirrel with a bushy tail made of sewing thread, while the fox, is a master lesson in the art of inlaying pieces of veneer onto a surface to create intricate and delicate patterns.
The centrepiece of Rolls-Royce’s exhibition piece at London Craft Week 2025 is a kingfisher, a bird that is considered a “royal icon” and a sign of success. Their presence is a positive indicator of clean water and a thriving environment.
The first section, dubbed “Swan Lake,” comes from Rolls-Royce’s Exterior Surface Centre. Over 100 painstaking hours went into recreating a lakeside habitat, with a pair of swans drifting across the water and a kingfisher hovering above. Artisans employed freehand brushwork alongside airbrushing and basecoat manipulation, even cutting and painting aluminium reeds to mimic the shimmer of morning dew.
As evening sets in, the “Enchanted Woodland” section – the work of the Interior Trim Centre – takes over. Here, more than 400 hours of labour went into transforming leather into a lively forest floor. Daisies are delicately hand-painted, while robust plants spring to life through layered three-dimensional embroidery. Wildlife familiar to the British woodland – a hare with elongated ears, a tufted squirrel with its signature bushy tail – emerge through a mix of painting and tufting techniques that give the scenes striking texture and depth.
The Enchanted Woodland section of the triptych brings to life animals commonly found in the British countryside, such as the hare.
The final piece, “Stealth After Dark,” is arguably the most intricate. Specialists from the Interior Surface Centre dedicated over 500 hours to cutting, pressing, and arranging tessellated wood veneer pieces that capture the stillness of the forest at night. A fox, rendered through marquetry prowls through the undergrowth. In a first for the marque, artisans experimented with painted veneers, tinting the wood just enough to capture the fox’s reddish coat while preserving the natural grain beneath.
In “Stealth After Dark”, Rolls-Royce’s artisans trialled painted veneers to better represent the reddish hue of the fox’s fur and its white-tipped tail.
The triptych will be on display at Rolls-Royce’s flagship London showroom on Berkeley Street, Mayfair, for the duration of London Craft Week. It’s a rare public glimpse into the craftsmanship typically hidden behind the closed doors of bespoke luxury motoring — and a celebration of artistry that bridges the worlds of nature, tradition, and cutting-edge design.
Mesmerising mythology at a major new sculpture exhibition in Norfolk
Mythological beasts stalk the grounds of Houghton Hall – in a good way.
The stately home in Norfolk is presenting Stephen Cox: Myth, an absorbing new exhibition of the work of the British sculptor. Arranged across the park gardens and interiors, this is the most comprehensive retrospective ever of the Royal Academician’s sculpture.
Covering more than 40 years, Stephen Cox: Myth features work made all over the world, from India to Egypt, and from Italy to the UK. Renowned for his monumental work in stone and employing traditional techniques, the sculptor draws on an eclectic range of inspirations from every corner of the globe.
Around 20 sculptures in marble and stone are situated in the landscape and in the Stone Hall on the first floor of the mansion, which has been home to the Cholmondeley family since 1797.
For instance, visitors approaching Houghton Hall, which was built for Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, in the 1720s and is one of the country’s best exemplars of the Palladian style, are greeted by Gilgamesh & Enkidu. This mighty sculpture depicts the mythological Mesopotamian warriors in black Aswan granite (see lead image).
At the same time, Cox’s smaller works are placed in the State Rooms, where William Kent’s famously ornate decorations have altered little since they were first crafted in the early 18th century.
Lord Cholmondeley, owner of Houghton Hall, explains why these sculptures work so well in this setting. “The title of Stephen Cox’s exhibition at Houghton seems particularly fitting as so much of his work as an artist references the mythology and religions of ancient civilisations – especially Egypt and the Indian subcontinent – with their allegorical fables and anthropomorphic deities.
“An alchemy of enrichment seems to have occurred between Cox’s sculptures and William Kent’s sumptuous interiors, with their variegated marble tables and entablature, a subtle connection across the centuries that both Kent and his patron, Sir Robert Walpole, would surely have approved of.”
Stephen Cox: Myth exerts a potent hold, and visitors to the exhibition may well find themselves moved to agree with the writer Joseph Campbell’s observation that, “Mythology [is] the homeland of the Muses, the inspirer of art.”
Author: James Rampton
Stephen Cox: Myth Houghton Hall, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE31 6UE Until Sunday 28 September 2025
A landmark exhibition uncovering the artist’s overlooked prints
Everyone is familiar with JMW Turner’s matchless oils and watercolours. His 1839 masterpiece, the oil painting The Fighting Temeraire, is regularly voted the greatest British artwork of all time. To mark the 250th anniversary of his birth, the Whitworth gallery in Manchester is mounting an enthralling new exhibition of his prints, equally magnetic, yet far less widely known and often overlooked. Entitled Turner: In Light and Shade, the show is quite remarkable because, for the first time in a hundred years, it displays all 71 of the artist’s published prints.
The show exhibits Turner’s extraordinary, but unjustly neglected series of landscape and seascape mezzotint prints, which were collected in the Liber Studiorum. Meaning “Book of Studies” and published in fourteen parts from 1807–19, the tome was collated when Turner was at the peak of his fame.
Giving us a new take on the artist, the exhibition teams his striking Liber prints with a host of his evocative watercolours from the Whitworth’s collection.
The prints demonstrate how Turner’s stunning deployment of colour and atmosphere in paint was reinvented in print by utilising line, tone and negative space.
Prints can often be seen as the “Cinderella” of the art world, but Turner’s use of the medium proved a game-changer. His rarely-seen, exquisite black-and-white works underline the artist’s mastery of light and shade. They show that he is perhaps the most accomplished exponent of ciaroscuro since Caravaggio. They also help explain exactly why Turner is our most revered artist and continues to inspire painters today.
Author: James Rampton
Turner: In Light and Shade The Whitworth, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6ER Until 2 November
