Brian Sewell obituary: ‘cruel, kind and always loyal’

Britain’s most outspoken art critic, he went on to become an outraged commentator on politics:Brian Sewell, who has died aged 84, was for many years the best-known, most outspoken and most widely read art critic in Britain. His column in the Evening Standard was loved by London’s strap-hangers, even when they knew nothing about the artists he was laying into. In recent times, he wrote with equal fury on a vast range of other subjects, particularly the postures of political leaders, w