The Easel

18th July 2017

Breathing Colour by Hella Jongerius at the Design Museum, London

Staff | smow | 30th June 2017

Despite the paint industry’s best efforts colours look different at different times of day. Are their ‘flat’ colour designs depriving us of the beautiful subtleties of colour?  “I’m not concerned with having the blackest black, I’m concerned with having the richest. It was only a few years ago that a dress went viral on Twitter due to people’s mixed opinions on whether it was “white and gold” or “black and blue”.”

The Encounter at the National Portrait Gallery: historical figures live in the moment

Alastair Sooke | The Telegraph | 12th July 2017

Before the fine details of the painting comes the sketch. Although a working device, drawings of the Renaissance have long had their own appeal. It’s not just the stellar artists – Holbein, Rembrandt and others – but also the spontaneity of the sketch. “It seems as if his eyes have swiveled in our direction only a split-second earlier. At a stroke … the nearly 500 years since Holbein made this drawing dissolve into nothing. Poof!”

The Pivotal Role That Women Have Played in Surrealism

Izabella Scott | Artsy | 4th July 2017

A favourite object of male surrealists was the female nude. But some important surrealists were women and fantasy object was not exactly the job description they had in mind.  A London show portrays a century of female surrealist artists.  In a Lee Miller image, “in a riposte to Man Ray’s use of the female figure as a curious, beautiful object a breast is served up on a plate, like a dreadful loin of meat.”

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