Gwen John, Girl with Bare Shoulders, c 1910. Photograph: SCALA Archives/© Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Scala, Florence View image in fullscreen Gwen John, Girl with Bare Shoulders, c 1910. Photograph: SCALA Archives/© Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Scala, Florence Art Weekly newsletter Art and design Beguiling beauties, designs to be sat on and giant corn dollies – the week in art Gwen John’s singular poetic world, Enid Marx’s signature designs for the London Underground and the rural gothic of LR Vandy – all in your weekly dispatch
Jonathan Jones Fri 31 Jul 2026 13.00 CEST Last modified on Fri 31 Jul 2026 13.01 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google Exhibition of the week Gwen John: Strange Beauties This excellent and moving encounter with the Welsh modern painter, touring from Wales’s National Museum, takes you deep into John’s silent, poetic world. Modern Two, Edinburgh, from 1 August until 4 January
The Pattern of Life: Enid Marx and Modern British Design Creator of the London Underground’s seat coverings and other classic fabrics, Marx is presented here as a major modern designer. Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until 3 January
East of the Aldgate Pump A survey of contemporary artists working in east London, including Rene Matić and Denzil Forrester. Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 6 September
LR Vandy: Rise Giant corn dolly-like sculptures arranged round a Maypole offer a draft of rural gothic for summer. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, until 13 September
Ranti Bam : Sacred Groves The mysterious power of clay to connect nature with the human body is explored by this British Nigerian artist. South London Gallery, until 23 August
View image in fullscreen Photograph: Saul Leiter Era-defining photographs from the likes of Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange and this image from uptown Manhattan in 1960 by Saul Leiter showcase the US cityscape, from midnight crime scenes to gloomy corridors. They are part of a major new show in London. See our full gallery
The fight to save the world’s only women’s sculpture park from becoming a generic space for VIP events and cocktails is on
Gunter von Hagens died this week, but his plastinated horrors will endure
Nearly 20 Georgia O’Keeffe works inspired by her New Mexico will show in the UK for the first time
Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s iconic Glasgow School of Art faces ‘curated decay’
Startling unseen work by the late Brett Whiteley has been found at his studio
Kyiv wants to erect a statue of a Cossack chief in place of ‘enemy of humanity’ Lenin
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Artists find creative haven in Côte d’Ivoire’s ‘calm and soothing’ Grand Bassam
The Water Cistern (‘La Fontaine’) by Jean-Siméon Chardin , 1733 or later
View image in fullscreen Photograph: Heritage Images/National gallery We can’t see this young woman’s face as she bends to release water from a bronze tank into a wooden bucket. She’s dressed in simple clothes and doing exhausting work so we assume she’s a servant in a grand house or on a farm. That’s as much of a story as you can extract from Chardin’s painting, for it expands one moment in time, the little drama of the water splashing from the tap and the silent attentiveness of the servant. Life, in the eyes of this early 18th-century painter of the humble an…