How did you get involved in the art world? I grew up in a very cultural home that was also a private art gallery, by appointment. This fostered a love of art, albeit one that I was not consciously aware of for some time.

Walter Sickert has been described as the first British Modernist, and this oil on canvas, The Painter and His Model, courtesy of Christopher Kingzett, is a good example of the experimental nature of his work in the early Edwardian period.

We interviewed Ed Clark of Rowntree Clark ahead of the 2022 edition of British Art Fair.

Many of Howard Hodgkin’s works had enigmatic titles, as his work was deeply personal, based on emotionally charged moments from his life. And there has been much debate about why his first professionally-produced print (1964) is called ‘Enter Laughing’. Some suggest it’s a stage direction, seeing a figure entering from the wings. Others point to the 1963 John Stein Broadway farce with the same title. Perhaps it’s simply a memory from Hodgkin’s life.

In 1964 a bold young Yorkshire-born artist went to New York, and mingled with the foremost abstract artists of the time – Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko – as well as the all-powerful critic, Clement Greenberg. After three months, having got through his grant money, he came back home.

These duelling knights, designed and printed by Edward Bawden, are Sir Palomides and Sir Tristram, who have just been involved in one hell of a fight, for the hand of Queen Isoud, the fairest maiden in Ireland (and a handy surgeon, to boot).

Cynthia Corbett’s Summer Exhibition is a vibrant affair, reflecting a love for style, glamour… and cool Modernist buildings. We’re particularly taken by the work of two of the artists she is showing, Deborah Azzopardi and Andy Burgess.

This 2018 work by Frank Auerbach, painted in acrylic on board, is entitled ‘Reclining Head of Julia, 2018’. ‘Julia’ is his wife, not to be confused with Julia Yardley Mills (aka J.Y.M.), another of his regular sitters over the years.

He was a painter, a poet, a textile designer, a jeweller, a teacher, a jazz musician, and so much more. Alan Davie refused to be pigeon-holed, which is why, despite enjoying something greater than cult status, his work, surely, remains underrated.

A familiar face has been chosen to publicise the Summer Exhibition at Long & Ryle in Pimlico. It’s a watercolour by Mark Entwisle of the actress Anya Taylor-Joy, in the role of Emma in the 2020 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s much-loved novel.

Wylie is being shown at British Art Fair by Jonathan Cooper, at Stand 42 on the first floor, along with work by several other artists, including David Donaldson, Sarah Raphael, Norman Blamey and Leonard McComb.

Castlegate House Gallery, in the charming market town of Cockermouth in the Lake District, is holding its ‘Summer Selection’ show until August 31, featuring works by the likes of Joan Eardley, Miles Richmond, John Bellany and Norman Cornish.

It’s the last week of the Derrick Greaves exhibition, From Shangri-La to the Walled Garden, at James Hyman Gallery in Mayfair, which closes on August 26. The exhibition was organised to celebrate Greaves’ 95th birthday, and includes work produced as recently as 2021.

He painted matchstick men…

Paintings by the 20th-century painter LS Lowry are gaining in value: a recently discovered work entitled The Mill: Pendlebury sold for £2.3 at the Christie’s Modern British evening sale in January 2020.

Barbara Rae CBE RA, who had until 2020 been travelling widely for artistic inspiration – latterly in the Arctic - found herself grounded in Scotland by the pandemic. But what wonderful ground to be grounded in. She turned her attention to home territory: the Lammermuirs, the hills running from East Lothian to the borderlands, in the south-east of Scotland.

The splendid Frank Auerbach show at Newlands House Gallery in Petworth, spanning 60 years of the Anglo-German artist’s remarkable career, closes on August 14.

Zavier Ellis talks about Solo Contemporary at The British Air Fair, his own gallery, representing Hugh Mendes, and balancing being an artist with being a gallerist.

The Redfern Gallery, in Cork Street, is one of London’s longest-established Modern and Contemporary art galleries, founded back in 1923, when Mayfair was a rather less salubrious place.

Adrian Hill Fine Art opened in Holt, Norfolk in July 2013 to showcase quality and diverse works from private collections and some of the best-known names in Modern British art.

You might be forgiven for taking PJ Crook’s painting Oneday for an early ModBrit work from the 30s, with the stylised newspaper readers betraying their social class by the hats they are wearing.