The Easel

9th July 2019

Enigmatic and erotic: the art of Félix Vallotton

Will the real Vallotton please stand up. Vallotton’s early satirical woodblock prints are “astonishing in their sheer graphic force”. He then married into money and switched to painting. These later works are diverse, some having the polished realism of Holbein, others anticipating the acute psychology of Edward Hopper. Perhaps the only common thread is “the uneasy sense … that something is going on, concealed from the viewer.”

2nd July 2019

Cindy Sherman’s first UK retrospective

This exhibition, a lap of honour for Sherman, tells an important art story. Sherman doesn’t try for excellent photography. Her work shows the “gestures and tropes of womanhood” and is a commentary on images. As one writer puts it “Her work signaled the arrival of photography on art’s main stage … There is no real Cindy Sherman, only infinite characters who reflect the countless mediated images that bombard us daily”.

Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery review – a cut above

Print making has been popular for centuries. After WW1, the linocut was briefly all the rage. While not requiring the skill of, say, etching, it was ideal for the bold colourful style of British modernism. Municipal entities used linocuts widely in promotional materials to convey the speed and optimism of the burgeoning metropolis. Sadly, that mood and linocut’s popularity disappeared as peace came to an end. Images are here.