The Easel

2nd June 2026

Everything you need to know about the Bayeux Tapestry

Michael Lewis | The British Museum | 22nd May 2026

The Bayeaux Tapestry’s arrival in London will be a big deal. This piece is a useful primer. The Tapestry covers the lead-up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, where the French prevailed. Experts think it was made in England, by English women. Most of the action appears in the central frieze while the borders are decorative. For a few especially dramatic events, such as the arrival of the French fleet, the imagery spreads across the whole tapestry. Opening date in London is September 10.

26th May 2026

Leonora Carrington At Last

Christina Cacouris | Liberties | 15th May 2026

Slowly, Carrington’s place in 20th century art is being revised. Long seen as a surrealist “affiliate”, the macho character of that group (unsurprisingly) put her off. After the war, she ended up in Mexico where her art became a synthesis of pictorial imagination, feminism and the Celtic cosmology of her youth. Says one writer, the home for her became a “site of feminine power and magical metamorphosis. [For] Carrington, art was not an illustration of magic but its continuation by other means”.

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