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Country Life's top 10 arts stories of 2024
From the artist killed on his first day in the war to a masterpiece once sold for £30, these were our most popular arts stories of 2024.
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How 'the best picture in the world' was saved from destruction by a British army officer refused to follow his orders
Claudia Pritchard on the extraordinary tale of how Piero della Francesca’s 1460s fresco 'The Resurrection' was saved.
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Eyes wide shut: The art of sleeping
Sleep takes many shapes in art, whether sensual or drunken, deathly or full of nightmares, but it is rarely peaceful. Even slumbering babies can convey anxiety, discovers Claudia Pritchard.
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Dawn Chorus: The photographer-florist creating modern Grand Masters, plus Ashdown Forest and our Quiz of the Day
A look at the work of Harald Altmaier, an unusual solution to an imaginary problem, and much more besides in today's Dawn Chorus.
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The Legacy: Hans Sloane and the creation of the British Museum
A curious child who grew into a man of voracious intellectual curiosity, his life of collecting gave birth to one of the nation's great institutions.
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Lost and then found: A missing painting by Lord Leighton returns to London
Someone, somewhere, knows something about where it went.
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The genius inventors who created the world's most important clocks
Early clocks had variable hours, but even in the golden age of British horology, when Thomas Tompion made his masterpieces, a man relying on public timepieces could end his walk earlier than he had started. Huon Mallalieu traces the evolution of British clock-making.
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'As a child I wanted to snuggle up with the dogs and be part of it': Alexia Robinson chooses her favourite painting
Alexia Robinson, founder of Love British Food, chooses an Edwin Landseer classic.
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George Stubbs (1724–1806): Hero of the turf
George Stubbs, born 300 years ago, found Nature superior to art and approached his pictures with the eye of an anatomy scholar, yet no contemporary could rival him in capturing the elegance and character of racehorses, dogs and even zebras, as Jack Watkins discovers.
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The Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece that never was, thanks to an assassination, a war, an abduction and an invasion
The great master Leonardo da Vinci was on course to create an equine statue that could have rivalled his greatest pieces — until fate intervened. Carla Passino tells the tale of the da Vinci sculpture that never was.
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The tragic tale of Rex Whistler, the brilliant young artist whose time at the Front Line lasted less than 24 hours
Rex Whistler, determined that the Second World War shouldn’t be left to young boys, worked hard to become an officer and lead troops into battle, but the naivety of early courage cost him his life on his very first day of battle, as Allan Mallinson reveals.
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'I can’t look away. I’m captivated': The painter who takes years over each portrait, with the only guarantee being that it won't look like the subject
For Country Life's My Favourite Painting slot, the writer Emily Howes chooses a work by a daring and challenging artist: Frank Auerbach.
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The years when Art was part of the Olympics — and the double-gold winning painter who became its greatest champion
For decades in the early 20th century, the Olympic Games included events in art, literature and music. Only one person won more than a single gold medal in those years: Jean Jacoby, a painter from Luxembourg who remains his country's most decorated Olympian.
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'I painted my own reality': The five key moments that defined Frida Kahlo's life and work
70 years on from the death of Frida Kahlo, Carla Passino takes a look at the work and life of the trailblazing artist.
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Paris 1924, when sport came headfirst into an intoxicating mix of art, fashion and desire
When the Olympics opened in Paris in 1924, the French capital was already gripped by a ferocious blend of art, literature, cinema, fashion and a wild desire to dance. Sport merged into this culture to become the pinnacle of an extraordinary time, as Mary Miers reveals.
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Curious Questions: Why are there so few smiles in art?
Centuries of portraits down the ages — and vanishingly few in which the subjects smile. Carla Passino delves into the reasons why, and discovers some fascinating answers.
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Full steam ahead: The art of rail
The railway may have started its artistic life as a fire-breathing monster that devoured the countryside, but it soon became an emblem of advancing modernity, a cherished memento of the past and even, in the case of one station, the centre of the universe. Carlo Passino explains.
