The Easel

2nd June 2026

The chaos and passion of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek

Olivia Laing | The Observer | 29th April 2026

Hujar is becoming a mainstream figure in photography. His images portrayed New York’s downtown demi-monde in the decades before AIDS as well as his relationship with artist Paul Thek. Thek cared little for posterity while Hujar was the opposite and is thus more revealed in a new joint biography. Besides his technical prowess, the magic in Hujar’s images came from an “intense, soulful connection” with his subjects, in contrast to the “chilliness” of Diane Arbus. Says one writer, a “beautiful biography”.

I lived near a serial killer’: Steven Shearer on turning teen angst and death metal into high art

Eddy Frankel | The Guardian | 29th May 2026

Living in Vancouver and predisposed not to talk to the press, Shearer has built a reputation without attracting much notice. He is now “a star”, due particularly to his colourful, intense “lonesome” portraits of long-haired youths. He draws on media images that are then mashed up with allusions to German Romanticism. Are they “part-autobiographical” asks the writer. Says Shearer, “I guess you’d call them a kind of imagined portraiture”.

Book reveals how Chintz—India’s precious textile pattern—became a precolonial global export

Cyrus Naji | The Art Newspaper | 27th May 2026

Distained for being fuddy duddy, chintz is having an “intellectual” revival. It was traded in Asia for centuries before appearing in Europe around 1600 where it proved wildly popular. Rather than heavy woollen and stiff linen garments, consumers could now get lightweight, colourful, washable cotton. Trade and colonialism led to a sophisticated amalgam of Western symmetry and sinuous Persian and Indian designs. Although its back story is little understood, chintz has had an impact “on global art and design history”.

Everything you need to know about the Bayeux Tapestry

Michael Lewis | The British Museum | 22nd May 2026

The Bayeaux Tapestry’s arrival in London will be a big deal. This piece is a useful primer. The Tapestry covers the lead-up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, where the French prevailed. Experts think it was made in England, by English women. Most of the action appears in the central frieze while the borders are decorative. For a few especially dramatic events, such as the arrival of the French fleet, the imagery spreads across the whole tapestry. Opening date in London is September 10.

My visit to the Russian show that plunged a dagger into the Venice Biennale’s heart

Waldemar Januszczak | Waldemar.tv | 25th May 2026

An eyewitness account of the turmoil at the Venice Biennale following the unexpected return of Russia. Its exhibit celebrates how “eternity prevails over momentary concerns”, a line many took as referring to the Ukraine conflict. Once the “sulky green” pavilion opened, it was besieged with protests, leading Biennale organisers to close it to the public. Behind the locked doors, the “horrendously loud dance music” played on.

Digital artists were right all along, says Trevor Paglen

Trevor Paglen | Art Basel | 21st May 2026

Paglen, a notable digital artist, observes that “artists make art out of the stuff around them”. Currently that means digital stuff! Forget the NFT craze, digital art deserves “serious attention”. Digital art has the challenge of communicating the meaning of images that are made by machines. Further, does it matter that such images cannot really be “owned”. So far, such questions are unanswered. Perhaps this explains why the response of art writers to this type of work seems a bit ho-hum.

As Full-Time Art Critics All But Disappear, What Can We Learn From the Retiring Generation?

Catherine G Wagley | Art in America | 29th May 2026

The dismal state of art criticism. There were about 30 full time art criticism jobs in the US two decades ago. Soon there might be none. The three most influential art critics have all departed in the last few years. Their writing varied from the factual to the emotional and all had their blind spots but their departure has meant a loss of “consistent, careful looking”. No-one mentions the gloomiest scenario, that quickening social change may be loosening the community cohesion from which art often springs.

26th May 2026

Anni Albers: the weaver who rewrote modernism

Ali Morris | Wallpaper | 6th April 2026

Albers began studying textiles at the Bauhaus which she found to be competitive and sexist. After leaving Nazi Germany for the US, she developed textiles as a serious medium within modern art. A solo show at MoMA in 1949 was a turning point, showcasing works that were abstract yet emphasised the inherent quality of materials. The way she prioritised structure over decoration led one critic to call her a “fabric engineer”.  Her late printmaking likewise created images “through process rather than gesture.”

Paul Klee

Reinaldo Laddaga | 4Columns | 5th January 2026

The Nazi’s pursued Klee as a “degenerate” artist. Sacked from the Bauhaus, he went into exile where his art changed. His “wiry, scratchy black line” drawings, previously so often focused on idealised nature, turned to irony and satire as ways to confront fascism and political violence. This interpretation isn’t explicit in his work leading to complaints of “curatorial over-reach”. However, such criticism seems to deny the obvious that, disenfranchised by the Nazi’s, Klee would respond through his art.

Remembering Raghu Rai: The photographer who showed India to itself

Abhishek Dey | BBC | 27th April 2026

Rai was widely regarded as one of India’s foremost photographers. He chronicled major national events, such as the 1980’s Sikh militancy, with an understanding of the nation’s contradictions. His portraits of India’s political and social elite shaped how the nation saw its leaders. Just as importantly, he recorded the rhythms of everyday Indian life in a way that “bridged reportage and art”. He aimed, he said, to capture “life’s longing for itself.” Images are here.

Mum isn’t the only word at Tate’s magnificent Whistler show

Mark Hudson | MSN | 20th May 2026

Whistler is rarely seen as a star of 19th century art. Living in Europe during the Japonisme craze, he absorbed it unfussy aesthetic, producing landscapes with features that are suggested rather than fully detailed. The famous portrait of his mother is likewise a study in restraint and proof that art could be both “abstract and accurate”.  But Whistler was an “egomaniac” and his own worst enemy, distracting us from the fact that he made “extraordinary and genuinely revolutionary paintings”.

Leonora Carrington At Last

Christina Cacouris | Liberties | 15th May 2026

Slowly, Carrington’s place in 20th century art is being revised. Long seen as a surrealist “affiliate”, the macho character of that group (unsurprisingly) put her off. After the war, she ended up in Mexico where her art became a synthesis of pictorial imagination, feminism and the Celtic cosmology of her youth. Says one writer, the home for her became a “site of feminine power and magical metamorphosis. [For] Carrington, art was not an illustration of magic but its continuation by other means”.

Admit it, art snobs: Winston Churchill was a surprisingly decent painter

Alastair Sooke | MSN | 20th May 2026

Some readers will wonder if Churchill has sufficient artistic cred to grace the pages of this newsletter. Well, the writer is emphatic that “on occasion he was surprisingly decent”, especially his landscapes of the Atlas mountains and of Marrakech. Admittedly he did not have the “blazing audacity” of Matisse but “occasionally a painting by him really comes together”. Comments by the curator (here) appear to indicate the show was not her idea.

The 21st Century’s Biggest Art Trend is Not a Style. But Once You See It, You’ll Notice It Everywhere

Emily Watlington | Art in America | 24th May 2026

Systems art draws attention to the vast web of linkages that underpin modern life. Such art takes many forms, such as Burtynsky’s “industrial sublime” photography, or documents about intelligence gathering networks. These networks seem to be presented as undesirable, perhaps because they reduce our scope for “expressiveness”. But in an age of social media, is that right? With globalisation and the reality of climate change, isn’t such art sounding a little 20th century?

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