Exhibition of the week
Edinburgh art festival
A staggering range of art for Edinburgh’s festival season, with great shows by Ibrahim Mahama and Chris Ofili standing out, while Hayley Barker and Sir John Lavery provide pastoral escape.
Various venues, Edinburgh, 9-25 August
Also showing
Money Talks: Art, society and power
An exploration of art and money featuring works by Andy Warhol, Banksy and Grayson Perry.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, from 9 August to 5 January
Pirates
The summer exhibition of every kid’s dreams – and this history of nautical crime will absorb adults, too.
National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Falmouth, until 6 January
Contemporary collecting: David Hockney to Cornelia Parker
Survey of contemporary printmaking that shows that etching, engraving and other techniques are still alive and kicking.
British Museum, London, until 29 September
Turn It Up: The power of music
Fun for all ages in an interactive exhibition about the science and technology of music.
Science Museum, London, until 1 September
Image of the week
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Art for Change has partnered with When We All Vote, a non-partisan non-profit founded by Michelle Obama that seeks to increase voter participation. Interspersed with pieces such as Caris Reid’s playful rendering of the word “VOTE” against a starry backdrop and Rico Gatson’s colourful celebration of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, each piece in this collection takes on new context. Read the full story
What we learned
Jamie Hawkesworth’s photographs offer startling visions of Britishness
Rachel Cusk and Hari Kunzru have written some of the best novels about art
Sculptor Hany Armanious is the perfect artist to reopen the Henry Moore Institute
Once revered surrealist painter Henry Orlik has opened his first show in 50 years
Piero della Francesca was one of the most charismatic artists ever
Buckingham Palace is to host a blockbuster show of Renaissance drawings
The fourth new Banksy to appear in London this week was stolen within hours
Photographer Sefton Samuels, who documented northern English life, died aged 93
Noli Rictor won the Natsiaa award for First Nations art with a ‘truly majestic’ painting
Masterpiece of the week
Young Woman Standing at a Virginal by Vermeer, circa 1670-72
If there’s any Vermeer painting that backs up the theory that he used some kind of early photographic device, it’s surely this one. The room in which a young woman stands playing a keyboard looks almost too box-like and neat, as if it were a set in Vermeer’s studio. He could have, perhaps, captured the image as a bright projection in a camera obscura and traced its shapes before filling them in with paint. But why would he do that? It would still take immense skill to transform an image seen that way into this scene, with its subtle colours and textures and the woman’s enigmatic expression as she looks at us. No, this isn’t a photograph. It is a work of genius whose deceptive simplicity holds profound poetry in every nuanced shadow.
National Gallery, London, on loan to Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
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