Happy birthday Edward Lear
Michael Rosen on 'Old Derry down Derry', still known as one of the best painters of exotic birds as well as the master of nonsense verse, who celebrates his bicentenary on 12 May
Culture coach: the week’s essential arts stories
Charlotte Higgins: It was the week that Maurice Sendak died and Bianca Jagger had a fight at the opera. Here are the past seven days' biggest arts stories from around the web
Adrian Searle encounters … Luc Tuymans’s Allo!
The Guardian art critic journeys deep into the heart of darkness with Tuymans's Gauguin-themed painting, displayed in A Room for London, the boat perched on the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Culture coach: the week’s essential arts stories
Charlotte Higgins: Every week I'll round up the biggest arts stories from around the web, recommend a long read and look ahead at what's coming up
Gillian Darley on John Golding: ‘He said that I could, and should, write’
Gillian Darley writes: John Golding was the most inspiring of an outstanding group of teachers in my undergraduate years
Should judges always pick a winner?
The Pulitzer prize for fiction will not be awarded this year after the jury couldn't raise a majority for any of the candidates. But is this such a bad thing? Alex Clark and Nick Fraser talk it through
Edmund de Waal turns Amber Eyes towards Waddesdon
The ceramic artist and author of The Hare with Amber Eyes has been tasked with embellishing one of England's grandest houses
John Golding obituary
Artist, teacher and historian of modern art, he wrote a seminal work on cubism
Why I hate the myth of the suffering artist
AL Kennedy: It is absurd and insulting to assume artists are assisted by despair or hunger in a way that, say, plumbers are not
John Griffiths obituary
Illustrator whose bold creations adorned Penguin book covers
New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake’s 80th birthday
Amy Winehouse, JK Rowling, Noel Gallagher, Mick Jagger and the Monty Python foot to feature in update of 1967 original
Edgar Allan Poe and the art of squalor
Jonathan Jones: From the 19th-century French avant garde to Damien Hirst, artists have revelled in Poe's world of bohemian depravity
Jean Giraud obituary
French comic book artist internationally known by his pen names Moebius and Gir
Why art will not suffer death by digital
Jonathan Jones: Ebooks may be pushing print towards oblivion, but high-priced art is unique and in no danger of being replaced by a virtual substitute. Just ask Damien Hirst
Tomi Ungerer, rennaisance man of children’s book illustration
The prolific author and illustrator is a goodwill ambassador for the Council of Europe and there's a museum in Strasbourg dedicated to his work. His 'fables' deserve greater recognition, writes Joanna Carey
Dorothea Tanning obituary
Painter, sculptor and poet with a vivid, dreamlike style
Ian Simpson obituary
Painter and educator who democratised and demystified the world of art
Peter de Francia obituary
Artist with a brilliant and combative style, he became the RCA's professor of painting
Emily Brontë portrait goes under the hammer
Painting set to fetch £4,000 at auction, a month after smaller portrait of Wuthering Heights author was sold for £24,000
World’s most expensive book, Birds of America, set to fetch $10m
Edition of John James Audubon's masterpiece of ornithological art, one of only 120, expected to break auction records
This week’s arts diary
Geoff Dyer savages Julian Barnes, plus in defence of the hedge fund knight, and the mystery of St Cecilia
Ronald Searle was our greatest cartoonist – and he sent me his pens
Martin Rowson: Without Searle and St Trinian's, it's impossible to imagine Scarfe or Steadman – and the generations they inspired in turn
Ronald Searle obituary
Artist and cartoonist best known for St Trinian's and Molesworth
Ted Hughes’s jaguar sculpture hints at poet’s demons
Poet's family to sell rare jaguar sculpture that they believe shows his pain over Sylvia Plath's death
Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith – review
William Feaver assesses a biography that paints the artist's death in a different perspective
Edmund de Waal: a passion for pots
Edmund de Waal's last book was an unlikely bestseller about a family heirloom. Now he's written a history of his first love, ceramics. Laura Barnett talks to him about life behind the wheel
How Britain got its patriotism back
Jonathan Jones: From the monarchy to fashion to old-fashioned food, British culture is brimming with pride. But is there a dark side to this new patriotism?
Light reading: the illuminated manuscripts of the dark ages
In the digital age we should look back in wonder at illuminated manuscripts: medieval Europe produced some of the most moving images of readers and reading that exist, says Jonathan Jones
Rescue work saves the future of ‘Wuthering Heights’
The lonely farm which is thought to have inspired Emily Bronte is preserved from the weather and vandals. And it is getting an artist in (sort-of) residence too
Lord Byron takes pride of place at art show curated by Simon Schama
Historian requisitions paintings from British embassies around the world for his Travelling Light show at Whitechapel Gallery
This week’s arts diary
Could there be a 'German bailout' for the RSC? The award refusal that was refused, and will Glasgow get a Turner?