A major hit at the Baselworld Watch Fair this week was a new, mechanical clock from L’Epée, the Swiss based clock manufacturer.

The Gutai Art Association (active 1954–72) originated in the cosmopolitan town of Ashiya, near Osaka, in western Japan. Gutai: Splendid Playground presents the creative spectrum of this influential avant-garde collective of the postwar era. Founded by the visionary artist Yoshihara Jirō in 1954, the Gutai group was legendary in its own time. Its young members [READ MORE...]

Founded in 1908 by Sir Charles Wyndham, the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) is the organisation that represents the producers, theatre owners and managers of the major commercial and grant-aided theatres in central London. Society members had a good year in 2012 despite recession, according to a recent report by SOLT. At the time of [READ MORE...]

Is it art or is it the Turner prize again? We’re always looking for inspiration. And what better place to look than the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery in London between 2 October 2012 and 6 January 2013. The £25,000 Turner Prize is presented to any artist under 50, who is alive and working [READ MORE...]

Why is it that while Europe is knee deep in economic turmoil that the art market is seemingly stronger than ever? Why is art so disconnected from the wider economic situation brought on by the 2008 financial crisis? Is it, as Les Echos journalist Pierre Gasquet believes, simply another speculative bubble bound to burst? Or [READ MORE...]

A sunset-colored painting by Mark Rothko became the world’s most expensive contemporary art work Tuesday when it fetched $86.9 million at Christie’s in New York. “Orange, red, yellow” was as hot at Christie’s as the colours are bold in this abstract masterpiece. Bids leaped in increments of a million, sometimes two million dollars. Mark Rothko [READ MORE...]

To commemorate the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, London’s National Portrait Gallery is now showing 60 images of the Queen in a landmark exhibition that chronicles 60 years of Elizabeth II’s reign from Sir Winston Churchill to the present day. The exhibition features works by Cecil Beaton, Dorothy Wilding, Pietro Annigoni, Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz, Lucian [READ MORE...]

Before you jet off on your Summer Holidays, why not take a crash course on how to make a decent Holiday video? In another few days the clocks go forward to Summer time, Easter will be upon us, the racing season has started and you’re planning your next cruise. Your video camera is looking [READ MORE...]

Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932 – 2011) really was the last of a kind. A Hollywood Goddess at a time when it really meant something to be a Hollywood Goddess…How many women could take the shine away from Marilyn Monroe or Princess Margaret? Elizabeth Taylor could. Princess Margaret is rumored to have once said to Elizabeth [READ MORE...]

Colin Firth was born on Sept 10th 1960, into an academic family – his father David a history lecturer at King Alfred’s College, in Winchester, his mother a lecturer on comparative religions at the Open University. He spent his very early childhood in Nigeria and part of it in St Louis, Missouri before returning to [READ MORE...]


