The Latest Breaking News from Gwen John

In a superb, mystical retrospective, the painter sheds social trappings – and her clothes – as she uses her enormous intelligence to paint purely

Must-sees include Beryl Cook’s postwar brilliance, Tracey Emin’s new highs, Frida Kahlo’s confessions, plus Google’s HQ and Gaudí’s finally finished fever dream

More than 250 works from amateur and celebrated Welsh artists are on display at the National Library of Wales until September 2025

This comprehensive show might be wide-ranging, but there are some real gems here

Our critics’ high points include a ceramic wedding cake you can climb inside to Alice Neel’s fearless portraits, plus a new children’s V&A and a school with lumpy yellow walls

Looking for something to do this Summer? Our experts have gone to some of the best exhibitions around the UK and given us their take on it. From retrospectives of painter Peter Howson’s work in Edinburgh and filmmaker Brian Desmond Hurst’s work in Belfast to a groundbreaking photography exhibition in…

The quiet Welsh painter Gwen John was not like any other artist, male or female – she was genuinely unique. She was neither an heiress, like most unmarried modernist women, nor a conventional academic artist, like most women who had to make a living with their art.

The Welsh-born painter Gwen John is generally remembered as a “fragile”, isolated figure, said Mark Hudson in The Independent. Neglected for some time after her death, John (1876-1939) was rediscovered in the 1980s, when she was reassessed as a reclusive talent overshadowed by two “bombastic male egos”: her brother, the…

Flawed, preoccupied and animated, Donachie’s vivid portraits intrigue and charm in a lively exhibition; Gwen John feels anaemic by comparison