Exhibition of the week
Reframed: The Woman in the Window
Rachel Whiteread, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman and others reveal how the depiction of women in Dutch golden age paintings has inspired contemporary artists.
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, from 4 May to 4 September.
Also showing
Radical Landscapes
Jeremy Deller’s green neon version of the Cerne Abbas giant and Claude Cahun’s island masquerades are among the subversive versions of pastoral here.
• Tate Liverpool from 5 May to 4 September.
True to Nature: Open-air Painting in Europe 1780-1870
French impressionism arose out of the tradition of oil sketching in the open air surveyed here, with rapidly painted landscapes by Constable, Corot and others. Partners well with Hockney’s current takeover of the museum.
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from 3 May to 29 August.
Andreas Gursky
The German artist whose uncanny panoramic photographs convey the complexity of modern life shows recent works, including sublime river views.
• White Cube Bermondsey, London, from 29 April to 26 June.
Archipenko and the Italian Avant Garde
This Kyiv-born pioneer of modern sculpture had a powerful influence on the Italian futurists.
• Estorick Collection, London, from 4 May to 4 September.
Image of the week
Art clubs popping up around Sydney and Melbourne are giving artists the chance to draw trans and queer people, burlesque performers and even models in cosplay. Read the full story here.
What we learned
Women outnumber male artists in the biennale’s main halls for first time
Justine Kurland sliced and collaged images from books by 150 renowned white male photographers
There are sandbags in Venice for Ukrainian art
Tracey Emin has a new sense of freedom in Margate
It’s pretty clear that Walter Sickert claimed he was Jack the Ripper
Museums have endured through crisis
The National Trust revealed the treasures of Polesden Lacey
A new office scheme for London’s South Bank is a brute
Reclaiming heritage fabrics is sparking a boom in African fashion
Masterpiece of the week
Sarah Malcolm, 1733, by William Hogarth
This is not one of the savage satires for which Hogarth is famous, but a sensitive, compassionate portrait of a woman awaiting her death. Sarah Malcolm, a servant, was convicted of murdering her mistress and two other members of the household – but insisted she was innocent. It was a notorious case and Hogarth obtained access to her cell in Newgate prison, where he sketched her two days before she was to be hanged. Her eyes are sad and pensive, looking away from us as if she is going over her life in her thoughts. Hogarth seems sympathetic to her in his visual language. He would probably have made her face more brutal if he believed her guilty. She is portrayed as a victim of a dark and labyrinthine justice system whose shadows surround her as it prepares to swallow her up.
• National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
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