Q&A: Nicky Wire

Lyricist/bass player with Manic Street Preachers The Manic Street Preachers formed  in 1986 as a post-punk quartet with a repertoire soaked in cultural and political references. In February 1995, lyricist  and guitarist Richey Edwards disappeared and, in November...

Frank Skinner – Comic timing

Back on tour again, comedian FRANK SKINNER is having the time of his life. He puts his 27-year career down to a Protestant work ethic and a Catholic fear of regret  As a boy, I used to dress up in a full cowboy outfit and strum a plastic guitar in front of  my family....

Mick Rock – Shooting stars

Legendary photographer MICK ROCK on why the Seventies was an exceptional time for music – as proved by his seminal photography of the decade’s talent I first met Bowie on 18 March 1972, before  his Birmingham Town Hall gig. He was a few months into...

Sublime passions

The subject of both his latest film and an upcoming Tate Britain exhibition, JMW Turner was a flawed, eccentric character with whom film director MIKE LEIGH finds great empathy When I was about 14, I had art posters pinned to my bedroom wall. Picasso, the...

A cut above

A landmark Matisse exhibition at Tate Modern offers a rare opportunity to view his final – and most radical – work, says the curator Nicholas Cullinan, exploring the artist’s legacy The idea for curating this exhibition – the most comprehensive...

Keeping up with Jones

Exalted and demonised by turns, the work of Pop Art veteran ALLEN JONES has always courted controversy. Now, as a Royal Academy retrospective brings together his most iconic pieces, the artist retraces his journey I was 26 when I went to live in New York. If  one...

Hopper, hippies and Hell’s Angels

Curator Petra Giloy-Hirtz describes her excitement at finding boxfuls of Dennis Hopper’s photographs, not seen since 1970, documenting a period of great change in the US Before Dennis Hopper died in May 2010,  he had been preparing a retrospective of ...

Angela Hartnett – The Italian connection

Michelin-starred chef-patron of Murano Angela Hartnett grew up with ‘la cucina’ in her blood. Now she’s passed on her skills to protégée and Cafe Murano head chef Sam Williams, an Italophile who is yet to visit the country  Angela...

These golden years

This spring’s David Bowie retrospective at the V&A celebrates the style icon’s influence and examines his influences. Exhibition co-curator Victoria Broackes offers a private view Long before David Bowie released ‘Where Are We Now?’...

Coming of Age

Amy Raphael looks at how, In an ever-changing market, today’s star artists are being given a run for their money by the Old Masters Peggy Guggenheim met Samuel Beckett in Paris on Boxing Day, 1939, at a dinner thrown by Beckett’s employer, James Joyce....