Exhibition of the Week
Jackson Pollock
Most of this great American painter’s life was wrecked by alcohol, until he broke free with the aid of a sensitive doctor into his glorious era of free abstract splashing and pouring. Then it all went wrong again. This exhibition explores the dark, imagistic works of Pollock’s final troubled years before the car crash that killed him in 1956.
Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, 30 June-18 October.
Also
James Lee Byars
A spectacular diamond floor created by this Romantic poet among conceptual artists.
Michael Werner Gallery, London, 23 June-12 September.
MC Escher
The mind-boggling perspective games of one of the 20th century’s most singular geniuses get a proper exhibition at last.
Modern Two (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art), Edinburgh, from 27 June-27 September.
Drawn from the Antique
The lingering spell of the ancient world, as revealed in drawings by Rubens, Fuseli and others at a venue that is itself one of the most moving homages to antiquity ever created.
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, from 25 June-26 September.
Unfinished
Fascinating encounter with the power of the unfinished from the Renaissance to Cezanne, Derain and Matisse, all drawn from the Courtauld collection.
Courtauld Gallery, London, until 20 September.
Masterpiece of the Week
Jacopo Tintoretto, The Origin of the Milky Way, c1575
Tintoretto’s incredibly free sense of space, a very personal reaction against the confines of Renaissance pictorial logic, makes this vision of the Milky Way spurting from the goddess Juno’s breasts truly heavenly.
National Gallery, London WC2N.
Image of the week
From the Guardian’s photo gallery Unbound: China’s last ‘lotus feet’ – in pictures
What we learned this week
Locked up in Bedlam, the artist Richard Dadd was set free
The great German photographer August Sander’s photos have gone to MoMA
Marina Abramovic is worried about the future of the planet
The BP Portrait award was a bit of a bummer
We can’t tear our eyes away from Bruce Conner’s film about Bikini Atoll
Britain is rather good at housing – when it gets round to building it
Sometimes the best artwork isn’t finished
Christina Broom took pioneering portraits of the suffragettes
We don’t know who the Margate family are – but we wish we did
