The Easel

23rd December 2025

Christmas break

This is the year’s last regular newsletter. On the two Tuesdays that follow Xmas, we will highlight the year’s most popular stories amongst the Easel’s subscribers. Happily, after years of writing, your editor has found a publisher for his book. It will appear in the second half of 2026. Interminable editing tasks will mean a longer end-of-year break than usual. The Easel will resume on Tuesday February 3, 2026.

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Season wishes,

Andrew

Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto

Beth Williamson | Studio International | 8th December 2025

Accomplished in multiple artforms, Salto is now regarded as a great ceramicist. He spent time in Paris in the 1920’s before returning to Denmark to make the highly expressive stoneware that revolutionised “the idea of the vessel”. These works have “budding, sprouting, and fluted surface textures that appear to ripple and burst with life”. Rather enigmatically, Salto talked about ‘the burning now”, the moment of transformation. Said he “I have always preferred burning mistakes to tepid accuracies”. A video (4 min) is here.

Mrinalini Mukherjee and the giants of Indian art

Laura Cumming | The Observer | 1st November 2025

India’s burgeoning economic status is reflected in a growing number of international exhibitions that showcase its art and the story of Indian modernism. The most recent is “dazzlingly diverse”, though dominated by the surreal sculptures of Mukherjee. Made from tightly woven coloured fibre, they display both her interest in the natural world and India’s richly illustrated spiritual world. Mukherjee was a pioneering modernist making art that was “international, not local.”, states one writer. “A revelation.”

L.A. exploded into a world art capital. I was lucky to be here to witness it

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 1st December 2025

In his final column a renowned critic contemplates how LA became an art world capital. He offers a three-part dynamic. Artists who previously would have gone to New York stayed in LA, attracted by affordable studio space. Then, in 1982 Getty was transformed when it became the world’s most richly endowed museum, thus drawing some media attention toward fine art. Lastly, LA’s contemporary museum, MOCA, opened in 1983. Will art critics be around to write about what comes next? “That’s anyone’s guess.”

State of the Art

Jackson Arn | Harper's Magazine | 1st December 2025

New museums were once inspired by the belief that “smart design and calm authority were … capable of saving the world.” Some still think that. This writer is sceptical, complaining that new institutions are “growth for growth’s sake … I think of them as spaceships to nowhere”. At a basic level, how many museums do we need? As a famous museum director noted, “one cannot enjoy a pure aesthetic sensation any longer than one can enjoy the smell of an orange.”

Hot pink stained glass in Notre Dame? Experts tell a skeptical public it’s all part of tradition

Lily Radziemski | Courthouse News Service | 18th December 2025

Preservationists and modernisers have battled continuously over the restoration of Notre Dame cathedral. The latest cause célèbre is six monumental but “unremarkable” stained glass windows that survived the fire but will be replaced. The new windows are highly coloured and establish “a slow, processional rhythm” with collage-like designs that include figures, landscapes, and abstract motifs. Fumes one outraged preservationist “Perhaps a little modesty would be preferable.” Images are here..

16th December 2025

Remembering Martin Parr (1952–2025)

Staff | Magnum Photos | 10th December 2025

After getting married, Martin Parr increasing directed his photography toward capturing the mundane aspects of British life. His seminal work, The Last Resort, featured seaside holiday makers in situations where “hope and promise don’t quite match reality”. While some praised his “pin-sharp satirical genius” others called him a “cynical smart-arse”. He seemed untroubled by the furore, responding that his work was “social documentary. I make serious photographs disguised as entertainment.”

An Exhibition at the Met May Just Make Finnish Modernist Helene Schjerfbeck Your New Favorite Artist

Laird Borrelli-Persson | Vogue | 8th December 2025

From studying in Paris Schjerfbeck developed a realist style broadly consistent with emerging modernism. After returning home to Helsinki, this style started to change. Her interiors took on an “architectonic plainness”. A curator says her portraits focused on “light, space, volume—not the soul of the sitter”. Her self-portraits were without sentiment, “depicting her mortality with an almost Goya-like intensity”. Says one writer. The rarely exhibited Schjerfbeck “shaped modern portraiture from a distance”.

Jeff Koons with Joachim Pissarro

Joachim Pissarro | The Brooklyn Rail | 1st December 2025

Koons divides opinions, and his first New York show in years is no different. The linked piece describes a studio visit where Koons enthuses over 18th century porcelain figurine that have inspired him. Sounding a bit like a retailer, he highlights his personal involvement with his new works. One writer protests that these glossy works are “intentionally stealing from the past. Poor [Koons]. He has no idea that no one will be thinking about this forgettable show by this time next year”.

Westwood | Kawakubo: NGV hosts the works of two iconic catwalk rebels

Lucianne Tonti | The Saturday Paper | 6th December 2025

Westwood and Kawakubo are revered fashion designers. Westwood pioneered “anarchic dressing” that celebrated female sexuality. Kawakubo’s anti-fashion aesthetic offers outlandish silhouettes and is almost never sexual.  Their common ground was rebellion and opposition to the “docile image of femininity”. For Kawakubo, comfort was a lesser priority than designs that made a person “aware of [one’s] existence. It just so happened that my notion [about this is] different from everybody else’s.”

June Leaf: ‘Shooting From the Heart’: The Grey Art Museum Honors a Lifetime of Uncompromising Creation

Abigael Sidi | The Science Survey | 17th November 2025

Leaf had a long career but never enjoyed sustained acclaim. Perhaps she was overshadowed by her famous photographer husband. More simply, perhaps her art also was too difficult. In the 1950’s when abstraction was all the rage, she not only stuck with figuration but produced work in “every art medium imaginable”. One renowned painting left the writer “equally captivated and confused, sure of its brilliance but unsure of its message … constantly layering ideas on top of each other”.

Bridget Riley and the pleasure of looking

Lily Le Brun | The Observer | 22nd November 2025

At the venerable age of 94, Riley is still painting. An “elegant” survey demonstrates she is still coming up with eye-deceiving abstractions that add to an already large “alphabet” of such work. Yet this prompts the question is this new work really new? Riley’s response is that she is trying to replicate the feeling of looking at nature. One work, consisting of triangles, evokes the sensation of waves lapping on the shore. How does she do that asks one writer? “I can’t stop looking”.

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