The conservative case for returning the Benin bronzes to Nigeria
By looting the artefacts, British colonial forces stripped them from the cultural context that gave them value.
By
Art & Design
Latest in
Art & Design
The best exhibitions of summer 2022
What to see in the UK this summer: from a famous Picasso portrait to an exploded garden shed.
By
How the Lindisfarne Gospels became an emblem of Englishness
The spectacular 8th-century illuminated book is returning home to the north, after 500 years in London.
By
Anna Boberg’s timeless Arctic landscapes
For 30 years the Swedish painter returned to the isolated Lofoten Islands, and braved “such hardships as men endure”.
By
The art of drawing Boris Johnson for the New Statesman
Having illustrated 22 Johnson covers for the NS, I have studied him closely; his hair is the sole element of…
By
From the NS archive: Sir Joshua Reynolds
18 August 1923: The battered reputation of British art’s first grandee and the founding president of the Royal Academy.
By
Thomas Eakins: an American oddity
The great realist painter ignored scandal to depict his nation’s outdoor life on his own terms.
By
David Roberts: Victorian visions of the Holy Land
The Scottish artist’s exotic renderings of Egypt and the Near East imprinted biblical landscapes on the 19th-century imagination.
By