Exhibition of the week
Bloom
Images of flowers, including still-life paintings by the wonderful Henri Fantin-Latour, Jan van Os and others, and an installation by Jade Blood.
• York Art Gallery until 8 October
Also showing
Markéta Luskačová
Retrospective for this Prague-born photographer of British society, including her sympathetic images of children.
• Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, until 7 October
Anila Quayyum Agha – All the Flowers Are for Me
An immersive installation inspired by Islamic architecture and its refined use of light.
• Kew Gardens, London, until 17 September
Flora Yukhnovich and Daniel Crews-Chubb
Big splashy colour-pumped paintings that respond to the Ashmolean’s collection.
• Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until 14 January
Paul Bril to Wendy Red Star
A chance to see prints and drawings recently collected by the museum from Bril’s European baroque art to a radical work by Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star.
• British Museum, London, until 10 September
Image of the week
After surrendering at the Fulton county jail in Georgia in relation to charges of election interference, Donald Trump had his booking photograph taken: an instantly famous image which joins a long list of celebrity mugshots, from Bugsy Siegel to David Bowie, telling the story of American culture and politics from the wrong side of the police photographer’s lens. Donald Trump Jr has already labelled this image “the most iconic photo in the history of US politics”. Read more about it here
What we learned
Life’s tough for the treasures of Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Hundreds of items have been “missing” from British Museum since 2013
A Tory MP accused Greece of opportunism over the missing British Museum items
The largest-ever survey of First Nations Australian art opened in New Zealand
Three men were convicted after a Met police sting operation recovered a stolen £2m Ming vase
Martin Wong’s politically prophetic work becomes a surprise summer hit
Art can show the power and limitations of trust
Rishi Sunak’s bee portrait came in for some stinging criticism
45th Parallel is Turner prize-winning artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s best film yet
Words take shape in myriad ways at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds
Melvyn Bragg is to step down from presenting The South Bank Show after 45 years
Masterpiece of the week
A Vase of Flowers by Jan Brueghel the Elder, circa 1607-08
In his own way the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel was a revolutionary like his father, Pieter Breugel the Elder – but a lot quieter. Where Pieter painted carnivals, war and plague, Jan specialised in flowers. His still lifes helped to put this gentle, metaphysical subject at the forefront of European art at the end of the Renaissance. His flower pieces were collected in Italy and imitated from Spain to Holland. This is a wondrous example of their richness and complexity. You lose count of the colours and forms of all these blooms. The artist’s own emotions are on show among the petals. He doesn’t look at these natural specimens clinically but with a soft poetic lyricism. The abundance of nature moves him, and by looking at this overflowing vase, we, too, are moved.
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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