The Easel

14th July 2026

Through Graciela Iturbide’s Eyes: Ritual, Identity, and the Poetry of Mexico

Cornelia Feye | Vanguard Culture | 4th March 2026

Iturbide a prominent Mexican photographer, often portrays her country from the viewpoint of indigenous communities. Indigenous culture is, of course, very different to western culture. Myth and death, for example, are central elements of indigenous Mexican culture. How can they be shown authentically? For Iturbide, it requires slow photography that is an “act of attention … … allowing images to form through proximity rather than pursuit. Says one writer she produces “haunting and haunted visions”.

Ana Mendieta review – were she still alive she’d be at the forefront of art in this century

Jonathan Jones | The Guardian | 13th July 2026

Mendieta placed her art “in the tradition of a Neolithic art”. If she meant that art was part of the process of life, that would make sense. Her earth-body works, executed outdoors, were ephemeral and did indeed return to the natural world. Beyond her obvious focus on womanhood and environmental concerns, however, her work is hard to decipher. What Mendieta undoubtedly did have was an instinct for emotional, unforgettable images. “This artist is irresistible”.

Controversial Costumes at the Met’s Newest Galleries

Suzanne Stephens | Architectural Record | 13th May 2026

New York’s Met reasons that because the human body is everywhere in art, fashion deserves a place in the museum. Interspersing artworks among the 200 garments on show brings to life the curator’s view that “the dressed body becomes a prism through which we view [art]”. Some go along with the argument while others state the obvious – “fashion gets people through the doors”. And one writer bells the cat: “it isn’t about the body but about the clothes. It’s an infomercial for the fashion industry.” Images are here.

‘A distinct Canadian character’: The 1920s paintings that changed how the world saw Canada

Cath Pound | bbc.com | 6th July 2026

Canada’s Group of Seven artists emerged just after WW1 at a time when the Canadian wilderness was thought an uninteresting subject for art. Having seen highly coloured Scandinavian landscapes the Group set about using that style to articulate the “feel”, rather than the look, of the Canadian wilderness. Their work is now celebrated as helping define Canadian identity. But there is a qualification. Their depiction of “empty wilderness” erased Indigenous presence. Theirs is the art of “settlers coming and appreciating the land”.

Who gets to be an American artist?

Robert Rubsam | Apollo | 6th July 2026

Many American cultural traditions at the turn of the 20th century were embodied in ‘folk art’. Mostly created by “uncredentialled’ artists, it was soon swept aside by Europe-based modernism, relegated to a lesser class of vernacular or outsider art. Although some work shows the influence of immigrant groups, it collectively displays “distinctly American qualities” and tells half-forgotten stories, Says a curator “folk art is an equally essential facet of the American artistic tradition”.

From Hokusai to Hogarth, a landmark new book explores the history of printmaking

Maxwell | Maxwell Museums | 10th May 2026

Prints are an historic art form that appeared centuries before the Gutenberg bible of 1455. Yet printmaking is little understood, and its inherently collaborative processes means it is often deemed secondary to ‘fine art’. Still, Durer, Rembrandt, Hokusai, Picasso, Warhol were all “titans” of printmaking and the bonds between artists and master printers are “incredible”. Artists typically love prints because they can be a lifeline in a cash crisis.  This book is “a love letter to the craft”.

Clearly Fake: Zurbarán’s Uncanny Realism

Jackson Arn | The Paris Review | 8th July 2026

A recent review of Zurbarán’s London show was straight up and down. Not this one. “By the late 1620s, Zurbarán had become the leading religious painter of Seville. [Yet he] makes paintings that are at once exquisitely lifelike and completely implausible. [It is hard to name a first-rate Zurbarán without this faint wrongness. People are less rational than they’d like to pretend, which is why all truly haunting images … share a slight, nagging offness.”

7th July 2026

Frida Kahlo: Tate Mistakes the Icon for the Artist

Emily Steer | Frieze | 26th June 2026

A writer comments that Kahlo has been “flattened” by mythologizing. Her self-portraits were psychologically revealing and varied, leading to multiple interpretations – her connections with surrealism and with Mexican culture, her challenge to gender expectations. But, with relatively few of her paintings in a London show, which interpretation best captures Kahlo? Forget her iconic images, her true legacy are the works that communicate the “bold examination of the self,” A backgrounder is here.

James Turrell’s 100th Skyspace

Hannah Ashdown | The Plum Edit | 27th June 2026

Turrell has created many “skyspaces” but a new one in Denmark is his most ambitious. At 40m wide, 16m high and with a 6m oculus, it’s big. Inside the dome monochromatic lights change colour, creating sensory saturation that, because of the way our eyes work, seems to change the colour of the sky.  Special programmes at sunrise and sunset enhance the light effects of those moments. Light, says Turrell “is not something that reveals but is itself the revelation”. A video is here

Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: From Scandal to Icon

Cristina Chan | SFMOMA | 30th March 2026

Fauvism lasted just three years and started with a summer holiday at the Mediterranean. Responding to that region’s bright vistas, Matisse and Derain created works awash with colour. No new art theory inspired this, simply the idea of divorcing colour from observable reality.  The exuberant work caused an uproar at the 1905 Paris Salon, establishing Matisse’s art career and inducing Braque and others to join in. Barely two years later Braque lost interest, favouring instead an even wilder quest – cubism.

Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50

John Elderfield | Princeton University Art Museum | 5th March 2026

De Kooning was classically trained but living in New York alongside abstractionists like Pollock, his “personal vocabulary” changed. Some works that started as figurative ended up abstract; others went the other way. Leading up to his first solo show in 1948, a mature style was emerging – abstract shapes, made with his characteristic bold and heavy brushstrokes yet carefully assembled. A few years later the ever restless de Kooning started his semi-figurative “Women” series.  Pollock shouted “betrayal”.

The unsung artists of Spain’s Golden Age

Cath Pound | Engelsberg Ideas | 9th June 2026

The Hispanic Society boasts a roll call of great Spanish artists who influenced European aesthetics. El Greco wanted a role at the Hapsburg court, but his distorted figures didn’t win favour. Noticing this, a young Velazquez stuck to a naturalist approach and prospered. Other artists of merit emerged from the American colonies but Velazquez, Zurbarán, Ribera and Murillo outshone them all. They created images of power, spirituality and theatrical intensity to match Spain’s immense power.

Waldmüller: Landscapes – a cool Alpine antidote to London heatwaves

Lucy Davies | Financial Times | 3rd July 2026

Why is Waldmüller, prominent in 19th century Austria, being given a London show? Noted in his day for landscapes and portraits (he painted Beethoven) he fell out with the art establishment over his rejection of “academic” landscape painting. Did his realist landscape painting “awaken” possibilities later seized on by the Impressionists? Unlikely – they knew nothing of him. His radical landscapes were an important idea but, not being in the right place at the right time, came to nothing.

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