Margate justifies Madonna’s love

Your digest of the top events, art news and gossip       Get more great writing every day – from just £1 a week     Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas Cincinnati Art Museum | 6 Feb–7 June These small, colourful works include courtly scenes, lush landscapes and mythological paintings       Metamorphoses Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam | 6 Feb–25 May Ovid's epic poem has had a profound influence on artists over the last two millennia       Honoré Daumier: Mirror of Society Albertina, Vienna | 6 Feb–25 May A chance to see satirical prints and drawings that range from the cheeky to the downright revolutionary       Samurai British Museum, London | 3 Feb–4 May Get to know what the warrior class of Japan were really like behind the masks         An independent panel has been set up in Switzerland to evaluate claims for Nazi-looted art – and the country's former president is heading it | the Museum of Fine Arts Boston has laid off 33 workers | hundreds of galleries in Spain are to strike in protest against the 21 per cent VAT on art sales | museums across the United States closed on 30 January in protest at the conduct of ICE | the Courtauld has announced the creation of two new galleries for contemporary art | Esther Bell, deputy director of the Clark Art Institute, has been promoted to director | the gallerist Marian Goodman has died at the age of 97         Margate justifies Madonna's love         SPONSORED CONTENT FROM     Hotel lobbies without guests. Bars set for a drink that will never be poured. Chairs pushed neatly under tables, waiting for someone who never arrives. Patrick Caulfield, who was born 90 years ago this week, made a career out of painting rooms that feel staged, expectant or sometimes faintly haunted. Using flat, unmodulated colour and heavy black outlines, he transformed ordinary interiors into graphic, almost theatrical sets, where human presence is implied but rarely seen. The conventions of painting interiors – domestic comfort, narrative detail, the use of certain kinds of perspective – have long proved irresistible targets for artistic subversion. Artists have flattened spatial depth into decorative pattern, revealed the psychological charge of empty rooms and thresholds, and shown how the objects we choose to display are cultural documents of identity and memory whether we know it or not. This week we examine four works that have challenged how interior spaces might be depicted and understood. This is part of our 'Four things to see' series, which offers you a new way in to some of the world's greatest collections, sponsored by Bloomberg Connects: the free arts and culture app.       Each year the Royal Society of Sculptors (RSS) organises the Gilbert Bayes Award, which recognises early-career sculptors of outstanding talent. An exhibition of the 10 winners, curated by Freeny Yianni, is currently on display at TM Gallery in London until 11 March. Yianni, who was selected by the RSS's board to be the guest judge of the award, is the curator, founder and owner of Close Gallery in Taunton, Somerset. She will be in conversation with Apollo – as part of our ongoing series of talks at TM Gallery – from 18:30 on Wednesday 11 February. Click here to register for a private view of the award winners' work and to hear Yianni discuss these works, how sustainability applies to sculpture, and her thoughts on the current state of the art form.     More from Apollo Current issue | Advertise | Podcasts   View this email in your browser   Follow us Apollo Magazine, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright © 2026 by Apollo Magazine. All Rights Reserved. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time. To ensure our emails are delivered to your inbox, please add Apollo to your email address book and safe-sender list.