Exhibition of the week Poet Slash Artist This joyous and visionary exhibition brings together artists, poets and poet-artists, including Lubaina Himid and Tracey Emin, in a manifesto for sensitivity and the inner voice. Home, Manchester for Manchester international festival. Also showing Forensic Architecture You wouldn’t want to get in an argument with this radical collective who investigate state power and expose the results on screen – they’d bombard you with their version of the facts. And there’s a lot I find debatable in their stance. But this is a visually powerful battering, and their research into the stain of slavery on America’s landscape is genuinely extraordinary. The Whitworth, Manchester for Manchester international festival. Presence Eerie images by Amilton Neves of a semi-ruined modernist hotel in Mozambique feature in this snapshot of current photography in Africa. Photographers’ Gallery, London, from 2 July to 29 August. Paula Rego The toweringly talented painter of magic realist psychodramas gets the retrospective she deserves. Tate Britain, London from 7 July to 24 October. Karla Black This sculptor of cast-off things inaugurates a relaunched and rebuilt gallery that’s long been a mainstay of Scottish art. Fruitmarket, Edinburgh from 7 July to 24 October. Image of the week A Picasso given to the Greek people by the artist in honour of their resistance to Nazi rule has been found in a gorge after a builder admitted to stealing the masterpiece and two other artworks in an audacious theft from the National Gallery in Athens nearly a decade ago. For nine years, Head of a Woman had lain hidden in the home of the self-described art lover alongside Stammer Windmill, a work by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, also stolen during the overnight raid in 2012. Fearing authorities were about to trace him, the thief transferred the priceless pieces to a warehouse before concealing both in protective wrapping and hiding them. Their recovery was greeted with elation in Athens. Read the full story here. What we learned William and Harry unveiled Ian Rank-Broadley’s Diana statue at Kensington Palace Frank Gehry’s Luma Arles tower finally opened in the south of France having taken 13 years to complete A rare Rubens drawing surviving from a notebook that was all but destroyed in a fire in 1720 is expected to fetch up to £600,000 at auction A San Francisco town settled a suit over a Flintstones-themed house A new book celebrates the unexpected beauty of London’s vents, shafts and funnels Thomas Gainsborough’s masterpiece The Blue Boy is returning to the UK The UK has some colossal artworks that will tower over you, surround you and swallow you up There is tension between tradition and technology in the Mennonite community in Belize “Hello, sailor” – a new Catalan exhibition is exploring mariners’ romantic lives Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans is worried the pandemic has made us fearful What it’s like to be a black person in nature The new V&A East is for local schoolchildren as well Argentinian artist Marta Minujín wants to reinvent Big Ben Sonia Boyce is part of the wallpaper in her new exhibition The French Impressionists didn’t know their works would be held up as masterpieces Bridget Christie loves Britain’s weird folk rituals Forough Yavari’s portrait of solitude has won the International Portrait Photographer of the Year prize A Georgian photographer’s destroyed archive was digitally resurrected An armed robber turned his life of crime into art Amanda Levete’s new Maggie’s centre defers to the New Forest-inspired garden that surrounds it Ukrainian schools are big on gender roles The winners of Getty Images’ inclusion scholarships were announced A show at PHotoEspaña 2021 gathered 10 years of images from Africa An island of secrets is its own work of art Masterpiece of the week Thomas Gainsborough – Mrs Siddons, 1785 If you are not sure what’s so exciting about this week’s news that Gainsborough’s masterpiece The Blue Boy is visiting Britain from the Huntingdon Library, California for the first time in more than a century, take a look at this example of his genius. In an age of extreme gender injustice, Gainsborough put women centre stage, portraying his female subjects with a character, richness and intelligence he rarely sees in men. Sarah Siddons was the most famous actress in Georgian London, getting acclaim as Lady Macbeth when she posed for this canvas. Gainsborough makes her come alive in oils, as if she’d just sat down this morning to be painted - his colours are so fresh, vivid and evocative that a simple depiction becomes a symphonic visual delight. Sarah Siddons gazes gravely, her strong face – hard to capture, said Gainsborough – radiating authority. Gainsborough is the least pretentious, but one of the most poetic, of great artists. National Gallery, London Don’t forget To follow us on Twitter: @GdnArtandDesign. Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter If you don’t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here.