The Easel

21st March 2023

‘The Ugly Duchess:’ How an unsettling Renaissance portrait challenges ideas of aging women and beauty

Marianna Cerini | CNN | 17th March 2023

At first glance, Massys’ famous portrait makes fun of its elderly female subject. Her odd face, ridiculous outfit and amorous intent certainly do that. Massys also had other intentions, though. He was riffing on a da Vinci drawing and tapping into Renaissance fascination with the grotesque. More subtly, Massys was subverting the uncritical praise of youth.  “[The painting’s subject] is not apologetic about herself. Elderly women in art [make] us look and think … There’s a lot of power in that”.

David Chipperfield: how the 2023 Pritzker prize winner creates buildings that last

Ano Souto | The Conversation | 10th March 2023

Architecture’s top award, the Pritzker, has gone to Chipperfield, whose architecture has “understated but transformative civic presence”. His signature projects, several in Berlin, create modern spaces that respectfully integrate with existing buildings. This means finding design solutions specific to each circumstance. Says he, “finding beauty in normality seems … very modern and very different from what contemporary society is doing.” Images are here.

14th March 2023

‘Going big suited her. Going very big’ – the uncontainable brilliance of sculptor Phyllida Barlow

Adrian Searle | The Guardian | 14th March 2023

Barlow, an art school professor, got her first major show a year after retirement. Kaboom – recognition, gallery representation and multiple honours! An obituary is here; the linked piece is more an appreciation. Mostly made from discarded building materials, her works “fold, they sprawl, they teeter, they slump and erupt. [They are] anti-monumental, for all their size, a wonderful parody of sculpture’s history of self-regarding masculinity, a burlesque of sculptural gravity.”

David Hockney Is Not Afraid to Go High Tech

Mark Guidicci | British Vogue | 23rd February 2023

Moving to Tennessee in the early 1980’s to take up an academic post, Lee started photographing nearby communities. After seven years he abruptly stopped, due to his “minimal” interest in recognition. Decades later, a book and a first exhibition have stunned critics. Says one: ”he is one of the great overlooked luminaries of American picture-making. It’s not often that a body of photography is hoisted up from obscurity and straight into the canon”. Images are here.

Old and New Discoveries: Baldwin Lee Interviewed by Mark Steinmetz

Mark Steinmetz | Bomb | 25th January 2023

Moving to Tennessee in the early 1980’s to take up an academic post, Lee started photographing nearby communities. After seven years he abruptly stopped, due to his “minimal” interest in recognition. Decades later, a book and a first exhibition have stunned critics. Says one: ”he is one of the great overlooked luminaries of American picture-making. It’s not often that a body of photography is hoisted up from obscurity and straight into the canon”. Images are here.

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