Exhibition of the week
Edinburgh art festival
Artists from Linder to Mike Nelson provide the fun in this hugely varied city-wide extravaganza.
• Various Edinburgh venues, 7-24 August
Also showing
Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream?
Jeremy Deller, Gweni Llwyd, Lewis Prosser and more explore Welsh myths, magic and history.
• Mostyn, Llandudno, until 27 September
Simon Periton ‘National Geographic’
Nature meets barbed wire in Periton’s colourful but ironic paintings and sculptures.
• The Modern Institute Aird’s Lane, Glasgow, until 27 August
Nicolas Party: Copper & Dust
18th-century pastels revisited by this Swiss-born former graffiti artist who has also painted a mural of a comic punch-up.
• Holburne Museum, Bath, until 31 August, mural until 19 October
The Nina Drucker Bequest
British drawings from the 18th to 20th centuries, including works by David Cox and John Minton, left to the British Museum by Drucker.
• British Museum, London, until 21 September
Image of the week
Two years ago a Cambridge-based antiques dealer snapped up an unusual looking painting at a house clearance for £150. It was a lucky punt as the mixed media artwork turned out to be one of a series of illustrations for an abandoned Arabian Nights project by Salvador Dalí. It is now back up for sale at auction, but at the slightly steeper estimated price of £20,000 to £30,000. Read the full story.
What we learned
Australians can rent a masterpiece from Artbank’s public collection
Lost photos by a trans community in the 1960s went on show in New York’s Met
A rare original proof of David Bailey’s benchmark 1965 Box of Pin-Ups has been found
Tate director Maria Balshaw blames Brexit and Covid for a huge slump in visitors
Thom Yorke of Radiohead’s work with Stanley Donwood was not a hit with our critic
Matthew Barney called his new show a western ‘that may involve shooting’
The daredevil queen of New York graffiti artists recalled scaring Keith Haring
Masterpiece of the week
The Feast of Herod by Peter Paul Rubens, circa 1635-38
Salome in a sinfully red frock serves up the head of John the Baptist on a platter in this rollicking work by Rubens at his most lavish. The story of the Baptist’s martyrdom – also painted by Caravaggio and dramatised by Oscar Wilde with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley – has it that Salome’s mother Herodias got her to demand John’s head in return for dancing before her stepfather Herod. Rubens gives it a cannibalistic twist: he dwells on the banquet’s food and drink and has the head brought up to Herod as an exotic dish. Herodias sticks her fork in its tongue. Yummy! Herod looks shocked and nauseated as he is forced to eat the reward of his sick lust for his stepdaughter.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
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