The Easel

Archives: The Guardian

17th March 2026

‘Negatives are photographic truths’: the collector who fled Russia with a haul of second world war images

Bondar, a Ukrainian photographer, sees war photography in especially broad terms. Besides including the work of professional photographers, it contains many images taken by less heralded photographers. Not having been manipulated, these represent a “collective memory” of terrible events. His WW2 images, assembled over more than a decade, are often conspicuous for their humanity, a “counterpoint” to conventional narratives of wartime heroism. Bondar’s website is here.

Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse review – this magnificent nag deserves a longer canter

Why is this George Stubbs show so small, given that he was “as good as Constable?” It consists of just two of his greatest equine portraits, works that may be unsurpassed in the genre of animal portraits. His renown rests not just on anatomical fidelity but also his desire to show an animal’s “soul”. Stubbs was a product of humane Enlightenment thinking. His outlook, speculates the writer, was shaped by growing up amidst “the sight of human oppression in Liverpool, a slaving port.”