The Easel

23rd September 2025

Kerry James Marshall: The Histories

Joe Lloyd | Studio International | 19th September 2025

Marshall’s study of Italian Renaissance paintings made him want to be a part of that art history tradition -“like Giotto and Géricault”. But where, he thought, were the Black figures? His works are thick with references, both to art history and to popular culture. In that sense they are “living history paintings” featuring the lived Black experience, Black subjects with their own preoccupations, emotions and ambitions. Says one writer, a “staggering, triumphant show”. A discussion of one key work is here.

Seydou Keïta’s Revelatory Portraits of Malian Life

Kobby Ankomah Graham | Aperture | 15th August 2025

Keïta’s photography tells deep stories. Some portraits have figures posing on motor bikes, symbolising modernity in newly independent 1960’s Mali. Malian eyes would likely pick out the textiles though, that displayed not just traditional designs but also influences from French colonial fashions. In his meticulous images, “individuals claim space within a rapidly shifting society. Keïta crafted a distinctive modernist photographic language anchored in the Malian arts of textile.”

‘Little Beasts’ at the National Gallery

Stuart Vyse | Skeptical Inquirer | 7th July 2025

In the 1500’s, Netherlanders regarded insects as vermin. Once they acquired an empire though, that changed. Artists and the learned classes were wonderstruck at the unknown insects and wildlife being brought in from the colonies. Both male and female artists created work, the best of which was “delightfully intricate and realistic”, seeding the idea of empirical observation. By around 1600, scientific enquiry was seen as separate from philosophy, and natural history was an established discipline. Images are here.

Georges de La Tour, the luminous to rediscover at the Jacquemart-André Museum

Letizia Dannery | L’Express | 13th September 2025

De La Tour is one of art history’s mystery men. Some think his centuries-long oblivion was a result of living in rural Lorraine. Yet he was an artist to the French king and joined in the stylistic innovation sparked by Caravaggio. Famous for candle-lit nocturnal scenes, his attention to detail helped convey a deep understanding of human emotion. Rediscovered in the twentieth century, de La Tour is now regarded as one of the great artists of the baroque. Images and a video link are here

Cropped, Chopped, and Silhouetted: Taking Celebrity at Face Value

Cara Shatzman | MOMA | 17th September 2025

Images are the fuel of celebrity culture. Whether it’s social media influencers, film stars or (increasingly) politicians, images are manipulated to flatter or to convey an idea. Archives of Hollywood studio photos show just how “ruthless” this process could be, with exaggerated images of femininity placed next to exaggeratedly masculine figures. One curator likens these images to the Pictures Generation artists who famously explored the gap between image and reality. Says another curator “celebrities are products”.

Radical Harmony at the National Gallery: ‘you can have just too many dots’

Melanie McDonough | Yahoo news | 12th September 2025

Pointillists like Seurat were, it seems, “narrowly doctrinaire” with their ever-so-carefully painted dots and colour choices. But Paris at that time was a hotbed of artistic experimentation, and colour theory didn’t exactly sound exciting. Signac emerged as an apostle of Seurat but his dots were coarser. Sometimes he even used lines! Despite the affinity of dotting with landscapes, this painting movement faded.  Seurat’s La Grand Jatte “was the great painting of the movement, but it still seems like a one-trick pony”.

16th September 2025

Stephen Shore’s ‘Early Work,’ with Pictures He Shot at Age 13, Is Anything but Amateur

Emmanuel Iduma | Art in America | 5th September 2025

Shore was hugely precocious, photographing New York street scenes when he was 13 and, only a year later, selling some of those images to MoMA. With his instinct for composition, he understood very early that “a camera doesn’t point, it frames”. While still a teenager he spent several years at Warhol’s Factory before moving into then unfashionable colour photography. Even in his 20’s his signature style was clear – “an attentiveness to the American surface”.

How a tiny stone from a warrior’s tomb is shaking up ancient Greek art at Getty Villa

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 10th September 2025

Ancient art history. Roman sculpture had its foundations in the Classical Greek (480 BCE onward) and Hellenistic (331 BCE onward) eras. That aesthetic focused on the ideal male form, harmonious proportions and expressive movement. A recent excavation in Greece has yielded a stone carving of a naturalistic male coming from the much older Bronze Age cultures of Minoa or Mycenae. Whatever the carving’s origins “long-settled art history has gotten a jolt”. A backgrounder is here.

Just how controversial was Banksy’s new Royal Courts of Justice piece?

Will Jennings | Wallpaper | 10th September 2025

Banksy latest image, a judge beating on a demonstrator, has appeared on the wall of London’s main law courts. The writer dismisses the work as vague – Banksy “wants to be seen as [a commentator] but not make any meaningful comment”. Another writer seems quite relaxed, noting that art works have been altered and erased for centuries. Elon Musk has posted that he approves of the work. Says Banksy, “it’s better if you treat the city like a big playground, you know? It’s there to mess about in.”

Man Ray and the dreams of objects

Staff | Kolapse | 7th September 2025

Man Ray was always chasing the next new idea. In 1921 he placed objects on or near light sensitive paper and then exposed them to light. Voila, the rayogram was created! It led to a decade of experimentation and a dalliance with the surrealists who loved anything that resembled dream imagery. Perhaps the reason the linked piece has such a ‘try hard’ tone is that, with hindsight, the rayogram has proven to be more whimsical historical footnote than enduring idea.

Seeing double: Vermeer painting and its mysterious ‘twin’ go on show

Gareth Harris | CNN | 2nd September 2025

Vermeer’s The Guitar Player hangs in London, was signed by the artist and is beautifully preserved. Its doppelgänger hangs in Philadelphia, unsigned and in poor condition. They are presently showing side by side to help settle a century-old debate about the authenticity of the Philadelphia version. Perhaps Vermeer made the copy but he was not known for doing that. Says a curator “if someone else painted it … they’re too good to have just done the one painting”. An excellent summary of the technical analysis is here.

Older links
Newer links