The Easel

15th December 2020

Thoroughly Modern Richie: A Hamilton Re(tro)spective At Pallant House, Chichester

Eight years before Warhol’s first show, Hamilton produced a collage that he described as “Pop Art … popular, transient, low-cost, mass-produced, glamorous, and Big Business.” Fascinated by consumer goods and with an innate understanding of glamour, Hamilton anticipated much of the cultural impact of mass media and technology. A clearly star-struck reviewer comments “his study of the modern recalls the past and illuminates the future.”

8th December 2020

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye review – ‘she’s turned Tate Britain on its head’

Yiadom-Boakye’s subjects are fictitious, but compelling. Mostly young, black and good looking, they show a “black society … as it exist[s] unto itself”. Her work – all oils on canvas – is loaded with the conventions of portraiture and “painterly erudition”. One reviewer is a skeptic – “these pictures smoulder, but never ignite.” The consensus, though, is elsewhere – “in so many ways, she already is [a living old master]”.