The Latest Breaking News from Laura Cumming

‘Luminous’ memoir on art and life named book of the year at national awards

Author Laura Cummings received the top gong during a ceremony in Edinburgh’s Central Hall.

Evening Standard · Nov 29, 2024

‘Manetsplaining’: author describes impressionist’s ‘agonising’ act of condescension

Washington Post art critic says Édouard Manet launched into ‘painful’ incident with fellow painter Berthe Morisot

The Guardian - UK · Nov 13, 2024

Naomi Klein and Laura Cumming shortlisted for inaugural Women’s prize for nonfiction

Joining the Guardian columnist and Observer art critic are academics Tiya Miles and Noreen Masud, FT journalist Madhumita Murgia and poet Safiya Sinclair

The Guardian - UK · Mar 27, 2024

Paula Rego: Crivelli’s Garden a ‘triumphant vision of female experience’

When Paula Rego was asked to paint a mural for the dining room of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing in 1990, it “seemed a thoughtless insult”, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. The artist, who died last year aged 87, was renowned for focusing on the kinds of people normally…

The Week · Aug 18, 2023

Thunderclap by Laura Cumming review – a visionary examination of Dutch golden age art

With time-stopping attention to detail, the Observer’s art critic searches for redemption in the rubble of the catastrophic Delft explosion of 1654 – to miraculous effect

The Guardian - UK · Jul 23, 2023

On my radar: Simon Schama’s cultural highlights

The historian and broadcaster on his favourite new sitcom, a moving art memoir, and why no one beats Anselm Kiefer

The Guardian - UK · Jul 22, 2023

Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death by Laura Cumming review – up in smoke

The critic explains her fascination with Carel Fabritius, whose studio was destroyed in a 17th-century explosion

The Guardian - UK · Jul 8, 2023

Art imitates life in a real explosion that almost destroyed The Goldfinch

Laura Cumming’s new book tells how the work by Carel Fabritius, the Dutch artist who died in the blast in Delft, reveals eerie parallels with Donna Tartt’s novel

The Guardian - UK · Jun 25, 2023

China’s hidden century review: an ‘enthralling’ show at the British Museum

In 1796, when the sixth emperor acceded, the Qing presided over a third of the world’s population and one of the most prosperous empires in history. In 1912, the 11th and last emperor abdicated, aged 12, ending 2,000 years of dynastic rule, and paving the way for the modern Chinese…

The Week · Jun 9, 2023

‘She paints with the brush in her ass’: the artists sharing their worst savagings

In the book Bad Reviews, 150 artists have revisited their most brutal critiques – from an ‘unforgiveable’ Carolee Schneemann sculpture to the critic who suggested the artist should be jailed

The Guardian - UK · Oct 4, 2022