A mixed bag at the RA… my review of A Story of South Asian Art for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/art/...

Chris Ofili loves steel pans. Lindsey Mendick adores Self Esteem. And Ragnar Kjartansson has to have the Cure. For the @theguardian.com I asked a dozen artists to reveal the music that brings out the best in them. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I went to Skagen, a remote fishing port at the northernmost tip of Denmark, in search of Anna Ancher for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/art/...

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in @theguardian.com for Betty Parsons at De La Warr Pavilion. Playful paintings and driftwood sculptures (I love the archive photo of the latter crouched on the beach like crabs!) from the legendary gallerist who represented Rothko, Pollock et al www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

✨ SALLY MANN ✨ I spoke to the US photographer about the controversy sparked by the images she made of her children in the 1990s, the “main characters” you need to make art, and the stuff that surrounds and hinders it. @theartnewspaper.bsky.social www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/01/c...

The case of the disappearing Amédée Ozenfant! Or, my latest for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

I wrote about James Delbourgo's history of collecting (and my childhood Beanie Baby stash) for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Very happy to have the lead book review in today’s @thetimes.com ✨ On Judith Mackrell’s lively joint biography of Gwen and Augustus John. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

I reviewed Judith Mackrell’s long and lively joint biography of Gwen and Augustus John for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

another day, another press release

Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely reunite! My review for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

If you ask me, there’s nobody painting modern motherhood quite like Caroline Walker. We chatted ahead of her new show, which focuses on the constellation of mostly female workers providing support during childbirth and early-years care. In today’s @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

It’s remarkable, really, the web Katie Kitamura can spin around a scene as simple as a woman meeting a man for lunch. My review of the author’s confounding and quietly intense fifth novel is in this week’s @thespectator1828.bsky.social www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

Never has a light switch been so enticing! A plug socket pleasing! A door handle deserving of a turn! I reviewed Do Ho Suh’s exquisite show at Tate Modern, which is as bright and cheery as it is profound, for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/art/...

I reviewed (and loved) Madeleine Watts’ second novel, Elegy, Southwest, which is thoughtful and quietly compelling, and conjures the familiar sense of steadily trundling towards disaster…. In this week’s @thespectator1828.bsky.social www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

Not every artist who skyrockets to fame makes it all the way into space…. I interviewed Amoako Boafo for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

My family were very confused about my sudden interest in the cables that carry info around the world on the ocean floor – until I told them about TWIST, Colum McCann’s latest, out now from @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social. My review for @thespectator1828.bsky.social www.spectator.co.uk/article/deep...

To celebrate the paperback publication of Hagstone next week, @chloeashby.bsky.social and I will be in conversation with Rosie Beaumont-Thomas of the Feminist Book Society at Bàrd Books on Tuesday 25th, followed by a book signing. 🎟️: wearebardbooks.co.uk/the-feminist... @cormackinsella.bsky.social

Tomorrow!

The dangers of dating Picasso ❤️💔 For @thetimes.com I reviewed Sue Roe’s Hidden Portraits, a group biography of the six women who loved Picasso: Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot and Jacqueline Roque. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

SECOND SELF but make it French 🇫🇷 My author copies of REPENTIRS have arrived, a week ahead of publication day (13th March) and on World Book Day! Translated by Anouk Neuhoff and published by Alice Déon and the dream team at La Table Ronde ❤️

I’ve written a third novel and Penguin Fig Tree are going to publish it! FAMILY FRIENDS is due summer 2026 👫👫 All thanks to Emma Finn and Ella Harold, and to Laurie for napping every now and then so I could edit. www.thebookseller.com/rights/chloe...

Manet (my other main man) was born on this day in 1832

First review of 2025 is in! On Paul Thomas Murphy’s double biography of John Ruskin and James Whistler, which describes in detail the notorious feud between the prominent critic and the flamboyant post-Impressionist. In this week’s Spectator 🚀 www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

P.S. Back on here (for good!) after tentatively joining many months ago 🩵

Who needs a baby sensory class when you have a gallery packed with psychedelic lights, zippy optical patterns and twitchy sculptures? My review of Electric Dreams at Tate Modern is in today’s Times. See pic of the mini critic www.thetimes.com/culture/art/...

The SECOND SELF paperback (dinkier, squashier, cheaper) will be on shelves in April! Thanks to the readers, bloggers, reviewers, booksellers who have championed this book so far 🍑 ‘Magnificent’ The i Paper ‘Tender and acutely observed’ Mail on Sunday ‘Thoughtful’ TLS geni.us/SecondSelfPB

Opening hot on the heels of London Fashion Week, Sargent and Fashion at Tate Britain celebrates the great portrait painter’s ability not only to paint his sitters, but to style them too. My review for the Independent www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Shower gel and noodles 🧼🍜 my review of Holly Pester’s debut novel, The Lodgers, is in this week’s issue of @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the...

Barbara Kruger’s first London solo show for 20 years – Thinking of Y̶o̶u̶. I Mean M̶e̶. I Mean You. – is at the Serpentine until 17th March 🟥 read more from me on the US artist over at the Independent www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

My latest for the Guardian on the celebrated third-generation Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona, who has a solo show opening at the Perimeter in London this week www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

As a child she splashed around in Frida Kahlo’s bathtub. At 16 she partied with Basquiat in New York. ‘It was just normal life,’ Jennifer Clement told me ahead of the publication of her new memoir, The Promised Party. My profile for the Independent: www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Sheila Heti on the book-writing process | 🤗😒😃🤩🫠

‘What I want is to be silent. Or else to have a conversation that does not revolve around my husband, my daughter, my son, my dead mother, my job or my house.’ My review of Cathy Sweeney’s first novel, Breakdown, is in this week’s Spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/shes...

Don’t you just love it when your book makes it into the window 🧡

I loved chatting with Constance Debré, the French lawyer turned novelist and author of Love Me Tender, for Port Magazine. We talked about law, autofiction, family justice, and the benefits of not having a boring bourgeois upbringing. Beautiful photographs by Kalpesh Lathigra

I’ll be in Paris on Friday talking all things PEINTURE FRAÎCHE at Libralire 🍊 come say hey!

Yinka Shonibare: Free The Wind, The Spirit, and The Sun at Stephen Friedman Gallery celebrates animalism, originality and freedom 🎉 my review for frieze www.frieze.com/article/yink...

As my editor said, ‘Art, fiction and that. Surely up your street. Fancy it?’ My review of Christine Coulson’s One Woman Show, the tragicomic life story of a Wasp-ish porcelain girl told almost entirely through 75-word wall labels as if she were an artwork www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-sa...