The Easel

23rd July 2024

Toshiko Takaezu

Jennifer Krasinski | 4Columns | 31st May 2024

Takaezu is revered among ceramicists but almost unknown outside that circle. Inspired by a student job at a ceramics factory she went on to develop her acclaimed “closed form” works, vase-like forms with tiny necks. These were followed by more eccentric sculptural objects. Takaezu had no interest in “ideal form”, experimenting endlessly with ceramic imperfection and making her work almost a combination of sculpture and painting. “A stunning retrospective”.  Images are here.

16th July 2024

Jean Hélion goes against the grain

Itzhak Goldberg | Le Journal des Arts.fr | 15th April 2024

Language barriers deprive artists outside the Anglo-sphere – like Hélion – of due recognition. An early advocate of geometric abstraction in Paris, he helped introduce it to the US but then shifted to figuration. The critics thought his surrealism-influenced arrangements of figures “incongruous” and called his nudes “insipid”. Yet his final works of Paris street scenes are “climactic achievements”. Says a curator “The more we look at Hélion, the more his work seems immense,” Images are here. (Google translate)

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