The Easel

9th July 2024

The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London

Hannah Silver | Wallpaper | 16th June 2024

How serious is this new London show? Cook’s exuberant images feature working-class women with unapologetically ample proportions. Tom of Finland’s pioneering drawings of hypermasculine machismo define a lexicon of happy gay male imagery. Both artists loved to show “fleshy excesses”, notably “exquisite depictions of the bum” while raising broader issues of gender, sexuality and class. Sighs one critic, “this is a small show, but I wouldn’t want more.“ Images are here.

2nd July 2024

How Ukraine saw ‘a period of real artistic flourishing’ in the early 20th century

Alastair Smart | Christie’s | 28th June 2024

Being next door to Russia, Ukraine and its artists have often been viewed as Russian. No longer. A show of works taken from Kyiv for safekeeping reveals that early 1920’s Ukraine was full of “cultural energy”, fusing modernism with the bright palette of Ukrainian folk art. Stalin’s purges in the 1930’s ended that, but not a yearning for national identity. Not all the art in this show is great, says one critic. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that art can provide a path “towards self-determination, towards self-expression”.

The afterlives of the wives of Henry VIII

Christina Faraday | Apollo | 28th June 2024

Such is the mythology surrounding the wives of Henry VIII that the writer feels a need to remind us that they were “people who really existed”. Especially at the Tudor court, royal portraits were always intended to project an image. The premise of this London show seems to be that his wives deserve greater recognition as individuals. A fine intention but, despite the curators’ best efforts, the status they derived from Henry is “inescapable”.

Is there still life in British still life?

Laura Gascoigne | The Spectator | 1st July 2024

Another take on the still life, from a British perspective. Initially, 18th century British artists copied the successful Dutch formula – a moral message without religious fervour. After Cezanne, Picasso and the surrealists helped revitalise the genre, British artists stretched it further by painting consumer products. Still life remains an active part of many art movements, so what is its secret? “It’s the discovery of the unfamiliar in the familiar that makes [it] interesting.”

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