The Easel

3rd February 2026

William Eggleston: The Last Dyes at David Zwirner

J Scott Orr | Whitehot Magazine | 17th January 2026

Eggleston caused a furore when his first show at New York’s MoMA featured colour photography. The rich colours he used commonly appeared in advertising, causing critics to call his work garish and an affront to fine art photography. At issue was a Kodak dye process (long since discontinued) that created colours so intense that images “acquired dimension”. Says one artist, Eggleston’s work was “one of the most perfect combinations of medium and subject in the entire history of art.”

The Unfolding of Time in Paint

Rachel Cohen | The Yale Review | 11th December 2025

One for fans of Joan Mitchell. Mitchell liked to paint multi-panel works, especially after her mid-career move to live in France. The writer discusses four works from the perspective of how they reflected Mitchell’s life. Mitchell claimed that her work expressed her memories of landscapes and that she liked “the vertical”, the rhythmic breaks between the panels. That rhythm conveyed a sense of time. Painting, she said, never ends … “it is the only thing that is both continuous and still”

A New British Museum Exhibition Peels Back the Layers of the Samurai Myth

Jimmy Chen | The Collector | 12th January 2026

This exhibition illustrates the inseparability of art and culture. Samurai emerged as a warrior class in the protracted feudal conflicts of Japan’s 12th century. Once peace was established in 1615, samurai moved into administrative or academic roles and were expected to support the arts and be attentive to religious matters.  A significant proportion were women. Codes of honour are mostly myths arising from avid Western interest. If all this sounds like far away history, consider this name – Darth Vader.

Celebrated Gallerist Marian Goodman Has Died at 97

Erik Morse | Vogue | 26th January 2026

Some commercial gallerists are acclaimed for their financial acumen, but few can claim to have changed tastes. Goodman was one of the latter. She opened her New York gallery in 1977 with the aim of bringing avant garde European artists to the US. This strategy worked and broadened the gaze of the US market. Underestimated by some male collectors, one competitor was more perceptive: “She defined the model of the contemporary gallery as having the same standards as a great museum.”

The Woman Who Immortalized the Bauhaus

Alice Rawsthorn | Aperture | 23rd January 2026

The Bauhaus is usually portrayed as a mostly male affair. Lucia Maholy arrived at the school as the wife of renowned artist Maholy-Nagy and became its unofficial resident photographer. Her “immaculately composed” still lifes of design objects defined a “radically new style of industrial photography”, while her “dispassionate” images of the school’s architecture still define our perceptions of the institution. Those images were later taken and used without attribution, making them famous but not her.

A man of women

Sabine Altorfer | Die Zeit | 29th December 2025

Critics are ambivalent about Vallotton. He moved to Paris as a teenager and found that engravings and illustrations perfectly suited his talent for composition. So far so good. After his marriage in 1899 he turned to painting. This work is technically accomplished, but sometimes without any clear tone. His female nudes often portrayed them “like curiosities of art history”. Concludes one writer, Vallotton was “relatively stolid and unadventurous”.

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.

If you enjoy reading The Easel, would you consider making a donation to support our work? I don’t bombard you with requests, accept advertising on the website, or monetise your personal data in any way. A donation to help cover running costs can be your gesture of appreciation.

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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..

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