Exhibition of the week
Giorgio Morandi
One of the greatest artists of modern Italy gets a lovely and eye-opening show of his eerie still lifes.
• Estorick Collection, London, until 30 April
Also showing
Marcus Harvey
Images of historical heroes and antiheroes by the artist whose portrait of Myra Hindley scandalised the 1990s.
• Wellington Arch, London, from 11 January to 19 March
Dan Flavin
Glowing modern masterpieces by this visionary sculptor of light.
• David Zwirner, London, from 12 January to 18 February
Charles-Henry Delafosse
Photographs of work and survival in Ivory Coast.
• Gerald Moore Gallery, Eltham, London, from 12 January until 28 January
Barbara Hepworth
The greatest artist who worked in St Ives, Cornwall, gets a show on her chosen ground.
• Tate St Ives until 1May
Image of the week
A woman photographs a Banksy artwork on a building destroyed by fighting in Borodyanka, near Kyiv. The image is one of seven street murals painted by the British artist in and around the Ukrainian capital in November, whose fate is now being widely discussed after one of them was stolen – though it was subsequently recovered. Read the full story here.
What we learned
Glasgow is considering legal graffiti walls amid a boom around the city
A British collector has rallied to help a Russian art museum in Spain
US museums will be spotlighting the work of female artists this year
The British Museum has held secret talks with Greece about returning the Parthenon marbles
American artist Dorothy Iannone, whose work focused on intense love, has died aged 89
Japanese architect and “postmodern giant” Arata Isozaki has died
Two leading museums are at loggerheads over a Vermeer painting
A Texas museum has returned a looted sarcophagus to Egypt
Masterpiece of the week
A Vase of Flowers, 1896, by Paul Gauguin
You wouldn’t necessarily guess that Gauguin painted this still life in Tahiti. After all, blooms such as bougainvillea and hibiscus, both depicted here, started being imported to Europe as soon as ships could sail around the globe. Such botanical migrations meant Gauguin’s follower Henri Rousseau could paint “jungles” just from visits to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. But this is not a scientific plant study. It’s a painting whose heady scent you can smell, as the intense colours of the flowers melt and shimmer in your mind, mixing in a druggy gold-edged mystique of tropical splendour. When Gauguin had arrived to stay with Van Gogh in Arles, his friend greeted him with ecstatic paintings of sunflowers. Gauguin here replies to their glow with darker, stranger hues of longing.
• National Gallery, London
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