American painter Amy Sherald’s bold portraits are visually arresting and culturally significant in equal parts. Not only is the Georgia-born, Baltimore-based artist the first woman and first African-American to ever receive the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C, but in 2018 she was selected by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her portrait for the official commission from that same gallery. While her warm, startling portrait of the First Lady may have shot Sherald to fame, her colourful portraits of anonymous African American figures are equally intriguing.

In each of Sherald’s portraits, a contemporary African American figure fixes their gaze on the viewer, posed against a different wash of colour — a cornflower yellow, crimson red or, as in this case, a textured green. It’s realism through Sherald’s lens, and the simplicity of the canvas at first look belies the subtle nuances that you uncover once you spend more time studying the portrait. Sherald invites the viewer to invest in that viewing time, and in the process, discover hints of the individual’s personality, mood and character in the details of their expression. The portraits in themselves are a radical act, creating a way for African American subjects to occupy space in a format that has traditionally been preserved for the White and privileged.

Milton Avery’s luminous paintings are characterised by bold colours and flat shapes. ‘I do not use linear perspective,’ he once said, ‘but achieve depth by color.’ Born in Upstate New York in 1885, Avery straddled American Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism — though he identified with neither movement — and drew inspiration from European Modernism, particularly Matisse and Cézanne, who prioritised colour in their compositions.

Over the course of his prolific career, he painted everything from landscapes and seascapes to the city, domestic life and portraits. In his late work, he favoured non-associative colours in his compositions and a pared-back subject matter. Two Figures on Beach is one such brilliant example. Executed in 1950, it shows the modernist flattening, colour sensibility and simplified forms, for which he became celebrated.

Martin Parr has photographed Britain’s beaches for more than 50 years. During that time, he has developed a knack for cataloguing the nuances and peculiarities of life by the sea, from children eating ice cream to couples basking in the sun. For Parr, the draw of the seaside is the diversity of material to photograph. ‘Every nation’s different attitude is represented,’ he once said. ‘You can see all the traits exemplified on the beach.’ Taken in Herne Bay in Kent in 1963, this black-and-white photograph brilliantly captures the fun-loving hedonism of the Swinging Sixties. Clad in nothing but a slinky white bikini, the woman lights a cigarette. Is she perturbed by her fully clothed onlookers? Absolutely not.

Honor Titus is one of the art world’s most buzzed-about painters. After fronting the Brooklyn punk-rock band Cerebral Ballzy and working as a studio assistant for Raymond Pettibon, he turned to painting, developing a unique style inspired by Les Nabis, a group of 19th century French painters who eschewed linear perspective in favour of flat planes of colour and decorative patterns.

In January 2020 he had a breakthrough show at Henry Taylor’s downtown LA studio and a year later his first solo show at Timothy Taylor gallery in New York. It sold out a week before opening, with critics hailing him as a rising star. Suffused with a sense of romance and nostalgia, Titus’s paintings depict leisure activities and fragmented street scenes conjured from his lived experiences and memories.

Trophy Position (2021) shows a woman measuring her serve up against an old-timey net. Is it match point? As with many of Titus’s paintings, we’re left to interpret the narrative. It is one of many sporting pictures Titus has painted over the last few years. ‘Athletics are often filled with such ritual, whether it be sartorial or domain, that I find it quite rich for inspiration,’ he once said.

Marc Quinn is renowned for his frank, visceral sculptures that explore what it means to be human today. Since finding fame in the 1990s with Self, a self-portrait cast from his own frozen blood, he’s made art from plastic bin bags and slides of human DNA — and even cast a sculpture of Kate Moss in 18 carat gold.

His ambitious new work 100 Heads comprises 100 portrait busts of refugees, cast in concrete from an initial 3D scan of the sitter. Each plinth is inscribed with the sitter’s name, birthplace, current residence and short message which challenges the perception of refugees as unidentifiable masses.

The sale proceeds from each sculpture will support the creation of Our Blood, Quinn’s not-for-profit project comprising two identical cubes of frozen human blood (one will be made from refugee donations, the other from non-refugee donations) which will launch at the New York Public Library in 2023. The project aims to raise awareness around the international refugee crisis, while also raising funds for refugee charities, including the International Rescue Committee.

Born in Norway in 1863, Edvard Munch is best known for sombre works — from paintings and watercolours to drawings and lithographs — that explore matters of human mortality, anxiety and emotional suffering. But he also produced paintings of nature, recreation and long summer days by the sea, suffused with luminous light and vibrant colours. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1908, Munch returned to Norway to lead a quiet life, finding inspiration in the landscape, farm labourers and animals around him. Created for the University of Oslo’s new ceremonial hall (Aula), The Sun (1909) depicts a glowing sunrise over the rocky archipelago off Kragerø. Not only does it reflect Munch’s newly optimistic outlook but also his interest in nature and Vitalism, a school of thought that promoted health and hygiene and emphasized the sun as an energy-giving source.

Yayoi Kusama has become synonymous with dots, infinity nets and pumpkins. Since coming to prominence in New York in the 1960s, she has expanded her creative practice to include installation, painting, sculpture, fashion design and writing. The obliteration room, which opens at Tate Modern on 23 July, reflects her enduring obsession with repetition, obliteration and interactivity. Originally conceived as a project for children by the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002, it consists of a white space, fully furnished with white furniture. Visitors are invited to cover every available surface with colourful dot stickers, transforming the room from a blank canvas into an explosion of colour.

Few images of the Queen are as mesmerising as this one. An outtake from Chris Levine’s official hologram portrait shoot of Her Majesty, commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust in 2004, it shows the Queen serene, her eye closed. ‘The camera that shot the sequence of stereo images took a while to reset itself after each pass,’ said Levine. ‘Meanwhile the Queen was brightly lit, and I suggested to Ma’am she might rest between shots.’ It was during these moments of rest that Levine captured Lightness of Being (2004). The sense of tranquillity that pervades the portrait stems from the artist’s interest in meditation. ‘I was very conscious of her breathing in order to capture a sense of calm in the work.’

This painterly photograph of roses comes from Nick Knight’s critically acclaimed series ‘Roses from my Garden’. Inspired by the work of 16th and 17th century still life painters like Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Van Huysum, Knight shot cut roses from his garden on his iPhone, using only natural daylight to illuminate them. He then enlarged the images and filtered them through software that uses AI to fill in the spaces between the pixels. ‘Roses from my Garden references the rich history of classical painting whilst also looking towards the exciting world of new technologies,’ he has said. Lush, delicately coloured and resolutely modern, Knight’s roses are among the most alluring in art history.