Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer made headlines when it was sold last month, but behind the dizzying price and the magnificent artwork hides the story of an ingenious ruse to escape Nazi persecution

The piece I’d never part with

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers

Exhibition of the week William Nicholson Pallant House ...

“WHAT DO I ASK OF A PAINTING? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince,” declared Lucian Freud, widely regarded as one of the most significant figurative artists of the 20th century. The Nation

The secret meaning of Vermeer’s art