Laura Cumming

6 days ago | observer.co.uk | Laura Cumming

Undergoing surgery to hide her Asian roots, 30s Hollywood star Merle Oberon is the subject of an absorbing film installation. And sass meets silk as American wives of British aristocrats sit for John Singer Sargent The Hollywood actor Merle Oberon, according to a sugary profile in Cavalcade magazine in 1937, was born on the sunny island of Tasmania, washed by the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Her father was an army officer who had died only months before.

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Laura Cumming

From Eric Ravilious to Lucian Freud, Bridget Riley, David Hockney and Lubaina Himid, artists depict each other with love, admiration and occasionally loathing in a relay through 120 years of British art that enthrals at every turn Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; until 2 November Lucian Freud’s 1952 portrait of his fellow painter John Minton is breathtakingly acute.

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Laura Cumming

From her 70s subversion of domestic drudgery to her naked adventures with a photocopier, a major new Helen Chadwick retrospective contains all the late artist's finest provocations. Plus, next door, Caroline Walker’s quiet scenes of modern-day motherhood Helen Chadwick: Life PleasuresCaroline Walker: MotheringBoth at Hepworth Wakefield; until 27 OctoberHelen Chadwick was at the peak of her fame when she died, suddenly, in 1996 at the age of 42.

4 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Laura Cumming

Balancing act… Giacometti’s Three Walking Men (Small Square), 1948. Giacometti’s compelling figures commune with the sculptures of New York-based artist Huma Bhabha in the Barbican’s bright and intimate new space Encounters: Giacometti x Huma BhabhaBarbican Level 2, London EC2; until 10 AugustA Giacometti in your own home: what would that be like? What presence might one of his thin men, forever fused with its base, exert on the room around it?

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Laura Cumming

Tourists gawp at shrines and pick their way through snow, labourers work the fields and rabbits gaze at the moon in a revelatory exhibition that foregrounds the wit and humanity of the great Japanese artist – and hiker – Hiroshige British Museum, London WC1; until 7 SeptemberHiroshige’s mesmerising image of a sudden shower over a Tokyo bridge depicts rain as torrential yet mysteriously static in a downpour. The print is a famous graphic feat.