The Easel

21st October 2025

A Night at Max’s Kansas City: Seeing and Being Seen in the 1970s NYC Art World

Pat Lipsky | Literary Hub | 9th October 2025

Montmartre was the art world’s epicentre in 1890, In the 1950’s it was Max’s Kansas City bar in New York. “You’d see handsome Bob Mapplethorpe with … Patti Smith. Their plans already incorporated the power shift we couldn’t quite feel taking place under our feet. [There was] acknowledgment: [Andy] had found this surprising and direct route to money. A moment when the wheels came off and the chassis sat there and you realized the art world was a small place bounded by compromise and disappointment.” 

New York’s Biggest Monet Show in 25 Years Is a Revelation

Alex Greenberger | ARTnews | 10th October 2025

Brooklyn Museum has been castigated for its superficial exhibitions. A show of Monet’s paintings from a reluctant visit to Venice in 1908 gets a more positive reception. Monet, noticing the changing autumnal weather and shifted “closer to abstraction”. The real consequence of that was evident when, on returning to France, he resumed work on the Water Lilies series he had been unable to finish. Feeling renewed, his lilies became swirls of pink and red paint, ever “farther from legible figuration”. Critics were delighted.

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