The Easel

13th December 2022

He may have been an antisemite, but he knew great Jewish art when he saw it

Diane Cole | Forward | 31st October 2022

When Modigliani died in 1920 the contents of his studio were lost.  A team of historians and conservators is working to fill gaps in our knowledge of his working methods. Some examples. His stylized oval faces only appeared after a mid-career detour into sculpture. His colours were complex – “a black is never just a black; he also introduces blues and reds”. Far from his reputed wild bohemian ways, Modigliani the artist was “stylistically restrained and highly skilled”. Images are here.

Turner Prize: Windrush memorial artist Veronica Ryan wins for ‘poetic’ sculptures

Ian Youngs | bbc.com | 8th December 2022

Britain’s art world nodded in approval with this week’s announcement that Ryan, a sculptor, had won the Turner Prize. She is the oldest winner of this prize and it comes after years of struggle and invisibility. One works cited by the jury is a public sculpture of a custard apple, a breadfruit and a soursop – recognition of a generation of immigrants to Britain following WW2. Says one critic, Ryan is “the real deal: a thoughtful, secretive, poetic artist”. Said Ryan of the prize, “better late than never”.

At the MFA, ‘Frank Bowling’s Americas’ is a pivotal show for an artist who’s impossible to peg

Murray Whyte | The Boston Globe | 27th October 2022

Bowling was a star art student in early 1960’s London before moving to New York. There, his style shifted toward abstraction – not “pure” abstraction but abstraction that incorporated narrative elements. This evolution reflected Bowling’s “bewilderment” – an outsider observing art amidst teeming social unrest. With hindsight, his art provides a “clarifying” perspective on that troubled period and is a reminder of the need to “constantly rethink what we consider the ‘canon’ to be.”

Adam Pendleton and the issue of originality in the digital age

Jeppe Ugelvig | Frieze | 8th December 2022

Pendleton, a New York visual artist, has accused a fashion house of copying his work. Initial coverage seemed sympathetic. Designers want to reflect the current visual language in their work – hence the popularity of Instagram. Pendleton acknowledges, though, that his art, which he posts online, also is part of a “tradition of montage and appropriation”. AI image technologies plunder online imagery, as do artists themselves. As Picasso himself observed, “good artists copy; great artists steal”.

Tom Sandberg’s elusive photographs show mysteries in plain sight

Pico Iyer | Aperture | 4th November 2022

A new photography book by the late Norwegian photographer Tom Sandberg is reviewed here. The linked piece goes further, becoming a meditation on Sandberg’s quiet, austere images of ordinary objects. They convey moody atmospheres with an infinity of shades of grey and seem to suggest narratives that lurk “outside the frame”. Some of Sandberg’s images are “so elusive, we look and look and still don’t know what we’re seeing. [They] come to us as a secular prayer.”

A classic Venetian artist gets his big moment at the National Gallery

Philip Kennicott | Houston Chronicle | 9th December 2022

Although a leading light of the Venetian Renaissance, Carpaccio is seldom shown outside Italy. Why so little exposure? Many of his most famous works are huge and too fragile to travel. Later Venetian painters, notably Tintoretto and Titian, made Carpaccio’s work seem “old fashioned”. And, some late career works are “rather bland”.  At his best, though, he was a superb storyteller who, more than any contemporary, brought “sacred history to life” for his city. More background and images are here.

6th December 2022

Ukraine’s Modernist art has defied censorship and missiles

Staff | The Economist | 1st December 2022

The battle over Ukrainian identity is long. European modernism put down early roots in the Ukraine, where radical art was fused with local folk and decorative arts. Much of that output was confiscated by the Soviets and the artists declared public enemies. Recently, even as missiles flew overhead, many of those same works were secretly trucked from Kyiv to Madrid for exhibition and safekeeping. Says a curator “If we do not preserve Ukrainian culture, we will not preserve Ukraine.” Images are here.

Ruangrupa in first place in the “Power 100”

dpa | Monopol | 1st December 2022

Power in the art world, says ArtReview, means an ability to influence the art being shown globally. The magazine’s  power ranking is “not smooth or consistent” and includes the ability to “disrupt”. Top spot went to ruangrupa, the Indonesian art collective that curated Documenta 15. At 100 is a curator of indigenous art in Western Australia. In between is an eclectic mix of artists, gallerists, academics and curators. Not a critic to be seen. Make of it what you will!

Aline Kominsky-Crumb

Kjell Knudde | Lambiek | 3rd December 2022

A critic described Kominsky-Crumb’s pioneering autobiographical comix as “loaded with ugliness”. Her renowned cartoonist husband R Crumb responded that her untidy graphic style simply showed she was free of “comic book banalities”. Recognition did arrive, helped by an eminent critic linking her “emphatic” style to German Expressionism. Mostly, Kominsky-Crumb was a feminist hero for her “unprettified” portrayal of women that posed the question “Okay, I’m disgusting, will you still love me?”.

How and why Pantone picked ‘Viva Magenta’ as its 2023 color of the year

Rachel Treisman | NPR

Pantone, a colour technology company, each year selects a colour to match the zeitgeist. In a decision anticipated by many, it has announced Viva Magenta as the colour that chimes with 2023’s “heightened appreciation and awareness of nature”. Pantone explained its choice thus: “It is assertive, but not aggressive. Viva Magenta cloaks us in both power and grace and sends us out into the world with the verve we’ve yearned for.” The “magentaverse” is upon us!

Denver Art Museum’s new look at Flemish old masters

Colleen Smith | Art and Object | 14th November 2022

Around 1500, and coming into its pomp, Antwerp prized the exquisite detail of Flemish gothic art. That is, until Italians started centering their art on the human figure. Flemish art gradually followed. This, together with newly developed oil paint that enabled greater tonal nuance, set the stage for the golden age of Dutch art. Stars like Rubens, van Dyck and Wautier drew on their traditions of careful observation to produce contemporary art that expressed “the vivid actualities of life”.

Aubrey Beardsley

Chloe Wyma | Artforum | 15th October 2022

Beardsley was gleefully transgressive and feasted on prudish Victorian England. Caricaturist, cartoonist, book illustrator, poster designer and, of course, artist, his career lasted just seven years. His love of the grotesque led a contemporary to accuse him of “blasphemies against art”. Yet his drawings and “serpentine” line remain instantly recognizable, as does his mixture of “coyness and acid observation, of tender description with shocking incident”.

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