Art for the Easter holidays

Associated media

New May content coming soon!

While the UK’s capital is full of well-attended art galleries, it is sometimes thought that there is less interest in the provinces, but  you only have to look at the story of the ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions to see this is far from the case. Inspiring people in rural and urban communities alike, including many who might not ordinarily have visited an art gallery, these exhibitions have given and continue to give people across Britain access to significant works of 20th-century and contemporary art. To mark the occasion of five years of these successful events a reception was recently held in Downing Street, attended by Anthony D’Offay, whose generosity in establishing the collection has made it all possible. Around 29 million people have visited over 100 exhibitions at 66 venues across the UK to date. There are now 38 artists in the collection, adding six to the original 32, the works number over 1,500 and the collection is still growing. ARTIST ROOMS was acquired for the nation by Tate and The National Galleries of Scotland through the d’Offay Donation in 2008 with additional support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and Scottish and British Governments. A very real success story in so many ways.

Cassone also strives to bring art to our ever-expanding international audience. This month we have exhibition reviews that  ‘Vikings: Life and Legend’ at the British Museum. This  was also the subject of a British television series, and will be a cinema broadcast on 24 April 2014: Vikings Live from the British Museum. The interest in these artistic and perhaps previously misunderstood marauders appears to be unlimited.  Other exhibitions we feature are ‘David Hockney’s Etchings and Lithographs’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery, ‘Italian Futurism 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe’ at the Guggenheim, New York and the exhibition at the Jerwood Collection, Hastings, East Sussex  ‘Jerwood: Revealed’, which displays many of the permanent collection’s works unseen before.

Jenny Kingsley writes on the history of London's Fashion and Textile Museum and the wonderful exhibition of fashion and textiles on until 19 May. Zandra Rhodes the fashion designer even sold her house to raise money for this museum. Here you note that Picasso, Chagall, Dali, and many other artists all created designs for fashions and furnishings.

Ian Charnock contributes a feature on the artist El Greco, whose quatrocentenary is this year, while Julia Ann Charpentier brings things right up to date with a feature on the Romanian artist now based in Chicago, abstract painter Costel Iarca.

Horror films aren't to everyone's taste but After Dracula, by Alison Peirse, shines a light on some forgotten examples of  early undead feature films that were at least as disturbing as anything released today. Ian Jones fearlessly reports from the world of vampires and zombies.

William Burroughs is not normally associated with photography, and David Lynch's is normally of the moving sort, but two new catalogues recording a recent show of their photographic output shows how both have engaged with the medium of still photography.

The skull may seem a strange object to inspire art and design, but Damien Hirst is not the only one to have used this age-old symbol of death as a basis for an artwork. Karen Hasin-Bromley reviews an oddly beautiful book.

Anyone who has visited the Cloisters Museum in New York will know how odd it feels to wander round what seems to be a mediaeval building in a park on Manhattan. For those who can't get there, a new edition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's guide to the Cloisters is the next best thing. And if you manage to get to NY over the holiday, the Museum itself is a treat you shouldn't miss.

We have a very varied selection of books in our Art and Artists section. Do take a look at this, and at our Archive, before you visit a bookshop!

Cookies on Cassone

Whilst browsing our website, to make your experience as fluent and intuitive as we can, we sometimes place small amounts of information on your device, for example, your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally but will help you to browse our website easily. We also use this information to track what pages are popular, what website you came from before this and what Internet browser you are using. Again, this is all so we can continually improve our service to you and is not identifiable to you personally

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you.

For examlple, we measure how many people are using our website, so it can be made easier to use and more informative to the end user.
Without cookies, you would need to log in again every time you chose to view a new article. Cookies allow you to move from one article to another without having to do this. For more information, see our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Cassone - ca-soh-neh - the box a wealthy Italian bride of the Renaissance period took to hold her trousseau; a box of beautiful things.