Cindy Lass cultivates Anne Frank’s legacy with a painting of her famous tree

North-London artist Cindy Lass has been commissioned by Sir Elton John, George Michael and the Queen. But it is her latest endeavour that she feels particularly passionate about.

The mother-of-two recently completed a painting of “Anne Frank’s tree” for the Anne Frank Trust. The teenager famously looked out on to a chestnut tree, which provided a rare glimpse to the outside world, as she spent two years hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945, aged 15.

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Apartheid rage, distilled into black-and-white

Photographer David Goldblatt spent 60 years chronicling South Africa’s social injustices. He was driven by anger, he says

David goldblatt has been railing against injustice for decades. The award-winning 78-year-old South African photographer has spent the past half-century chronicling the realities of life in his country. Under apartheid, his work was fuelled by anger at the way black people were treated. Post-apartheid, his work is fuelled by his anger that so many injustices still exist.

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The graphic art of confessing in public

A new show looks at what happens when we put our most intimate thoughts up for public consumption.

In a cultural climate fascinated by the private self, obsessed with celebrity exposés, and inundated with the daily revelations of countless bloggers, we are rarely provided with the opportunity to reflect on what happens when we put intimate information about ourselves into the public sphere.

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The French art of cliché and Middle East bias

Israel fares badly at a Paris exhibition

On the Paris Metro, heading to the Pompidou Centre, there are stickers declaring Israel “a terrorist state”. Once inside Les Inquiets (The Anxious), an exhibition “dealing with the subject of the war in the Middle East” through the work of five artists personally touched by the region’s conflicts, Israel does not fare much better.

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Let there be light and sound: Adés does Genesis

Leading young composer Thomas Adés has enlisted his Israel video-artist partner Tal Rosner to help produce a concerto based on the Book of Genesis. They tell Jean Hannah Edelstein why they wanted to work together

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The ‘shiksa goddess’ who acts kosher

Actress Lara Pulver has gone from gentile siren to nice Jewish girl in 12 months. Next stop, Hollywood, she tells John Nathan

From Shiksa Goddess to Jewish princess. For a young actress this is not the most obvious path to stardom. But for Lara Pulver, one of this country’s most promising stage performers, it is a route that last year led to her being nominated for an Olivier Award.

“That the roles are Jewish, or Jewish-related, has been a complete coincidence, to be honest,” says Pulver during a break from rehearsing her latest role.

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Haggadot get a comic twist

Israeli artists are re-imagining the ancient story using modern cartoon characters and graphic-novel techniques

Uri Fink and Zoya Cherkassky are part of a long list of highly talented Israeli artists who have set their hands to creating unusual haggadot. Russian-born, Tel Aviv-based and devoutly secular, Cherkassky was influenced by images by El Lissitsky, the Russian Constructivist movement and Bauhaus to create her edited version of a Haggadah.

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UK gallery has ‘looted Jewish art’

A painting in London’s National Gallery which hung on Hitler’s wall may have been stolen from a Jewish owner.

Cupid Complaining to Venus, by the 15th-century artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, has been identified in a photograph of Hitler’s gallery by researcher Birgit Schwartz.

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Lord and the dance

Contemporary dance star Hofesh Shechter is planning a new work on the 10 plagues

During rehearsals, Hofesh Shechter is asking his company of dancers what the English word is for staring with intent. “Glaring,” one of his dancers pipes up. “Exactly, glaring,” agrees Shechter, delighted that someone is able to interpret his direction.

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Isaac Rosenberg — a portrait as an artist

He is better known as a war poet, but Isaac Rosenberg, killed in action 90 years ago next week, was also a talented painter. As an exhibition celebrating his work opens in London,
Julia Weiner investigates his career as a visual artist

Isaac Rosenberg was killed on April 1 1918 while on night patrol in France during the First World War. He was 27 years old. The German sniper’s bullet that killed him snuffed out the life of a man who has since become regarded as one of the greatest of British war poets.

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