The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance The National Gallery investigates grotesque humour in the Renaissance and reveals the dark side of Leonardo da Vinci. National Gallery, London, from 16 March to 11 June
Also showing
Empowering Art: Indigenous Creativity and Activism from North America’s Northwest Coast Contemporary takes on the great Indigenous art traditions of the Pacific coast, which were established long before the USA. Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, from 12 March to 30 July
Nastja Säde Rönkkö Prize-winning Finnish video art about salt and its mythologies, from blood to seawater. Beaconsfield, London, from 16 March to 6 May
Interspecies Entanglements
Our interdependence with the rest of nature is investigated by Vivian Caccuri, Keira Greene, nabbteeri and others. Site Gallery, Sheffield, from 16 March-28 May.
Deep Horizons Tony Robinson, Dr Julietta Singh, nautical pilot Geoff Taylor, and artists Liliane Lijn and Fiona Crisp are among those turning curator to see the Mima collection afresh. Mima, Middlesbrough, until 18 June.
Image of the week
Work in Progress by Jann Haworth and Liberty Blake (2021-22)
Inspired by the Sgt Pepper’s album cover, Work in Progress is a seven-panel mural (of which three panels are shown here) featuring the likeness of 130 British women from Boudicca to Mary Beard. Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery as part of its three-year project to expand female representation in its collection, it will handily double the number of women on the walls of the post-1900 galleries to 48%, when the buildings reopen in June following extensive refurbishment. Read the full story here.
What we learned
Masterpiece of the week
The Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Hieronymus Bosch
The fantastic visionary mind of Bosch blazes from this excellent early copy of one of his eeriest works. The original is in the Prado, Madrid, but you could mistake this version for a painting by the mysterious artist from ‘s-Hertogenbosch. It’s a surreal masterpiece that has nothing in common with the portraits and landscapes elsewhere in the stately home where it hangs. The city in the distance resembles something from a sci-fi film or game, its bulging buildings alien and bizarrely organic. In front of the stable, an African king is portrayed in a lifelike way, perhaps based on someone Bosch met in the global port of Antwerp. The rotting stable has a slumping tragicomedy to it. From inside, the semi-nude antichrist gawps at the newborn child. All is utterly changed in this apocalyptic adoration. Petworth House, National Trust
Banksy is back with his first confirmed installation of 2024.
The anonymous British street artist posted on his Instagram account on Monday that he was behind a mural that was first spotted in Finsbury Park in London over the weekend.
In the artwork, a stenciled figure of a woman appears to have sprayed green paint over a white wall behind a pollarded tree, thus giving an optical illusion effect of foliage.
Others suggested it was a pessimistic take on the environment or a commentary on greenwashing, the tactic the United Nations defines on its website as “misleading the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is.”
Documentarian James Peak, the creator of the BBC’s “The Banksy Story” radio series, said the message is “clear” that “nature’s struggling and it is up to us to help it grow back.”
“When you step back, it looks like the tree is bursting to life, but in a noticeably fake and synthetic way,” he told the broadcaster. “And it’s pretty subtle for a massive tree, I’d say.”
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The artist Banksy has confirmed he is the creator of a large green mural of a tree with apparent environmental overtones which appeared in north London over the weekend.
Residents said they woke up on Sunday to the massive painting on the side of a block of flats in Hornsey Road near Finsbury Park.
Pest Control, the official body that authenticates Banksy work, confirmed to Sky News the painting was indeed Banksy’s latest offering.
The elusive artist – who shares his work on his Instagram page – also posted a picture of the site on his official page on Monday, showing the wall before and after the work was completed.
The large-scale painting is a green splatter-effect shape, painted behind a cut-back tree – giving the appearance of adding a halo of leaves and foliage to the bare branches.
The green paint drips down to the floor, where a figure of a young girl painted with a stencil in green and black is looking up at the work.
She appears to be holding a pressure sprayer.
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The shade of bright green paint used in the piece matches the colour of Islington Council branding, and also seems likely to be a nod to St Patrick’s Day, which was on Sunday 17 March.
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Local resident Amy, who lives in the building said she could never have predicted Bansky would have chosen her flat wall to paint on.
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She told Sky News: “We’ve lived here for three years, so we’ve seen the tree as it was when it was full of leaves and now it’s been chopped down.”
She described it as “a big willow tree” with “layers of leaves kind of over spilling”. She went on: “I suppose that’s what he’s tried to capture with the green. And then I think about a year or two ago, they chopped it down because it was getting too big”.
She described the unexpected painting as “really exciting” adding, “I’m really happy for the community that something so cool happened here“.
MP for Islington North, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also visited the site, sharing pictures on X and writing: “Banksy has come to Islington! What wonderful artwork, proving there is hope for our natural world everywhere.”
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Islington councillor Flora Williamson shared images of the art on X, and said she was a fan of Banksy’s work.
She wrote: “By far the most exciting thing to happen on today’s canvass session on Hornsey Road was seeing that Banksy had come to Tollington overnight. Lots of local interest – I’m a fan of it.”
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Lidia Guerra, another Hornsey Road resident, said: “The way it’s been done with the paint spraying down reminds me of a weeping willow, so there’s perhaps a message about the struggle of nature with the dead tree in front.
“It’s just great – when we read about it last night, we knew we had to come and see it as soon as possible.
“We feel so proud to think he chose our street.”
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Ahead of his latest creation, Banksy’s last confirmed work was a stop sign in Peckham, south London, with three military drones stuck across it, and was shared just before Christmas.
However, that work was removed less than an hour after it was confirmed to be genuine on the artist’s social media, with witnesses reporting it was taken down by a man with bolt cutters.
Two men were later arrested on suspicion of theft and criminal damage.