Exhibition of the Week
Tacita Dean
Not one but two national galleries (with the RA joining in later in the spring) celebrate this intelligent and poetic British artist.
• National Gallery, London, 15 March to 28 May; National Portrait Gallery, London, 15 March to 28 May.
Also showing
Joan Jonas
This boundary-breaking pioneer of performance and video gets a retrospective of her feminist vision.
• Tate Modern, London, 14 March to 5 August.
Ten Days Six Nights
Alongside her retrospective, Jonas is celebrated in this year’s Tate Live festival.
• Tate Modern, London, 16-25 March.
A Revolutionary Legacy: Haiti and Toussaint Louverture
Small but moving tribute to the Black Jacobins leader Toussaint Louverture, who fought for freedom in early 19th-century Haiti and inspired artists from William Blake to Jacob Lawrence.
• British Museum, London, until 22 April.
Francis Bacon
A meaty display of one of the most powerful and memorable of all British (or Irish?) artists.
• Modern One, Edinburgh, until 30 May.
Masterpiece of the week
Portrait of Louis-Auguste Schwiter, 1826-30, by Eugène Delacroix
This gorgeous portrait shows off the magic touch Delacroix had as a colourist in a wonderfully subtle way. Delacroix is not famous for understatement. He was the archetypal painter of French romanticism. His big paintings in the Louvre such as The Death of Sardanapalus, Women of Algiers and The Massacre at Chios tremble with sex, violence and horror. These over the top scenes with their sensuous use of colour fascinated modern pioneers such as Cézanne and Degas (who owned this painting). Yet here Delacroix plays it quiet. An elegant Schwiter stands in black, against a dark landscape. Only isolated touches of vibrant colour animate him – a glistening blue vase, the red silk inside his hat – yet the effect is brilliant. This is a portrait set alight by a dash of painterly genius.
• National Gallery, London.
What we learned this week
Tate artist in residence quits, claiming gallery is failing women
Frida Kahlo’s intimate belongings go on display at the V&A
Photography legend Joel Meyerowitz: phones killed the sexiness of the street …
… Plus a gallery of his finest shots, from Ground Zero to Florida in the 1960s
Balkrishna Doshi, 90, wins Pritzker prize for architecture
Obituary of architect David Shalev, behind Tate St Ives
Galeries Lafayette heir joins French tycoons in opening art foundation
Great shots: photos of Bobby Moore go on display at National Portrait Gallery
Chunk of London housing estate to star at architecture festival
Jonathan Jones loves Sondra Perry’s Typhoon but finds Ian Cheng’s AI merely soulless – review
Adrian Searle on Picasso 1932 – horror and beauty collide in Pablo’s fastest, wildest year – review
All Too Human review – flesh in the game of British painting
Yto Barrada’s best photograph: the prawn factory where women can’t talk
Africa Is No Island – photo essay
Lava, yaks and frogs: the Smithsonian magazine photo contest – in pictures
Bird Photographer of the Year 2018 – in pictures
Selling alcohol and tobacco to the masses – in pictures
Cities, deconstructed: Hatakeyama’s offbeat urban visions – in pictures
Cartoonist Simone Lia on art critics
Don’t forget
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