The Easel

3rd November 2026

‘A way of celebrating presence’: What Botero’s rotund remakes of classical masterpieces tell us about art history

Precious Adesina | bbc.com | 31st October 2026

Botero always pushed back at suggestions he painted “fat” people. He was, he explained, painting figures “with volume in mind”. Was this the influence of pre-Colombian art from his homeland that featured rounded forms, or simply an attraction to giving the ordinary a “monumental quality”. Either way, he celebrated voluptuous womanhood and rotund blokes in a non-sexualised, non-judgemental way. Adds one writer, Botero’s art is “unsettling as well as sensual … it forces us to think about life as well as art”.

MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and M+ Will Treat Their Holdings as One Collection in Unprecedented Alliance

Sarah Douglas | ARTnews | 29th October 2026

The recently announced “cultural alliance” between MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and M+ seems a big deal. These institutions have a common focus on “the art of the present”. Their alliance will attempt a long-term sharing of artworks to make the collections “work harder” rather than works idling away in storage. Ambitiously, each museum may end up with a dedicated gallery in the others. At a time of modest government support and expensive logistics, this is a “shrewd move”.

L.S. Lowry: a fresh look at the complex works of a self-described ‘simple man’

Alastair Smart | Christie’s | 23rd October 2026

Lowry has an odd backstory. He was a rent collector by day, painting only in the evenings. He lived at home and is not known to have had any romantic relationships. Combining what he saw from walking Manchester’s street with his artistic imagination, he captured the grime of the industrial landscape and people and places he said “nobody wanted”.  Says one writer Lowry was a “visionary of the industrial age … a modern expressionist who finds his inner melancholy reflected in the industrial sublime”.

Late-Arriving Pictures

Andrew Witt | Los Angeles Review of Books | 29th October 2026

Images of jazz musicians by Lisette Model showcase her “plainspoken” style. DeCarava’s jazz images were different. His work does not provide a standard narrative about Black experience. Famous musicians are shown alongside “garment workers and labourers”. When manipulated in the darkroom to achieve “an astonishing range of tonal gradations and transitions”, the images become “elusive”. This is DeCarava exploring whether “sound can acquire a visible form”.

A new $724 million museum is a visually stunning train wreck

Philip Kennicott | The Guam Daily Post | 24th October 2026

The fancy architecture of Los Angeles’ LACMA cost squillions and has been widely reviewed. What about its display of the art? It is an experiment in “non-hierarchical” display, with the art grouped geographically so it can be viewed in whatever sequence visitors wish. This is “conceptually clever but creates a confused, jarring experience. Chronology is too fundamental a human category to be dispensed with entirely. [For everyone except experts] the museum offers nothing but frustration”.

The unknown painter behind Manhattan’s Gilded Age interiors

Jane Coombs | Engelsberg Ideas | 20th October 2026

Decorative art is generally seen as not-quite fine art, and Finn was one of its great exponents. His art training in 1890’s Paris attracted the attention of American architects who were designing mansions for Gilded Age titans. They wanted to unify exterior design with interior aesthetics and Finn’s interior paintings “perfectly enhanced” the architecture. His acclaimed works include public libraries and theatres. Posthumous obscurity may not have bothered Finn as he sought acclaim only from his “peers and patrons”.

27th October 2026

Salman Toor’s Men in the City

Sean Burns | Frieze | 30th September 2026

Toor’s first exhibition in London is attracting rave reviews that will only add to a soaring reputation. Pakistani-born, he mainly paints “narrative” portraits and group figure compositions that explore the struggle to achieve “a sense of belonging, both culturally and emotionally.” Painted in “velvety” oils, they clearly reference Old Master works, of which Toor is an avid student. Says one critic, “He can do everything. … one of the most sought-after painters of his generation.”

Sunil Gupta’s candid camera

Michael Delgado | Apollo | 12th September 2026

New York’s Stonewell gay riots in 1969 were liberating for Gupta, allowing him to identify freely as a gay photographer. It was a period that involved “cruising with a camera” producing a mix of candid street photography and posed scenes. Returning to India and its “depressing” restrictions on gays, he recorded how gay men discreetly “revealed themselves”. Now somewhat less preoccupied with identity, Gupta seems pleased he can turn his lens to “a study of life”. Images are here.

Peter Max, psychedelic pop art icon of the 1960’s, dead at 88

Nancy Dillon | Rolling Stone | 16th September 2026

Max came to fame in the 1960’s with “trippy” flower power poster art. This reflected his uncanny awareness of contemporary aesthetics, supplemented occasionally by ideas taken from other designers. Even though the art world did not warm to him, his designs on jumbo jets, postage stamps and sporting events ensured enduring cultural relevance. His great ability, says one writer, was “individual expression at corporate scale … a true American art form”.

The Story Behind Edward Hopper’s Iconic Painting, “Nighthawks”

Louis Shadwick | Literary Hub | 26th October 2026

An appreciation. Nighthawks, one of Hopper’s great city images, was painted just weeks before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. He resisted interpretations that it was about loneliness, feeling that limited the “oceanic emotional world” that it depicted. This was a period of anxiety about the war, and the work was expressing a “poignantly American resilience”. It “emanates that heroic sense of isolation [denoting] something exceptional about the American condition”.

Europe’s Living Rooms

Staff | Magnum Photos | 5th October 2026

Strictly speaking, the linked piece is less an analysis of an artwork than simply a celebration. A group of photographers set out to document communal venues that foster social interactions. At a time of anxiety about the impact of social media and the online world on communities, here is a set of quietly reassuring images to be enjoyed.

Frick Collection Puts Spotlight on Siena’s Renaissance Role with Rare Bronze Sculpture Exhibition

Rena Gross | Frieze | 14th October 2026

Siena has long been overshadowed by glorious Florence. Renewed appreciation of early Renaissance Sienese painting is occurring and it is happening in sculpture too. Sienese sculptors focused heavily on bronze, even though it was more expensive than marble. Donatello and Vecchietta were widely influential, including on a later Michelangelo. They wanted their bronze works to have more “physical and emotional reality. [This was] a golden age of bronze sculpture”.

It’s brave to admire Renoir because he’s almost a cancelled artist these days

Waldemar Januszczak | Waldemar.tv | 19th October 2026

A recent review of the Renoir show now in London gave a positive take on this artist. It seems only fair to hear the other side. This show is a “cocky” attempt to position the artist positively – that he was “uncouth but truthful”. His early work has “spectacular painterly qualities”, his quick hands capturing the sway of dancing couples and “the rush of love”. But the show stops at 1885, when Renoir still has decades of life left. It’s a wise decision – “Renoir the fierce misogynist is held back from the fray”.

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