The Easel

2nd June 2026

I lived near a serial killer’: Steven Shearer on turning teen angst and death metal into high art

Eddy Frankel | The Guardian | 29th May 2026

Living in Vancouver and predisposed not to talk to the press, Shearer has built a reputation without attracting much notice. He is now “a star”, due particularly to his colourful, intense “lonesome” portraits of long-haired youths. He draws on media images that are then mashed up with allusions to German Romanticism. Are they “part-autobiographical” asks the writer. Says Shearer, “I guess you’d call them a kind of imagined portraiture”.

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

Mum isn’t the only word at Tate’s magnificent Whistler show

Mark Hudson | MSN | 20th May 2026

Whistler is rarely seen as a star of 19th century art. Living in Europe during the Japonisme craze, he absorbed it unfussy aesthetic, producing landscapes with features that are suggested rather than fully detailed. The famous portrait of his mother is likewise a study in restraint and proof that art could be both “abstract and accurate”.  But Whistler was an “egomaniac” and his own worst enemy, distracting us from the fact that he made “extraordinary and genuinely revolutionary paintings”.

Admit it, art snobs: Winston Churchill was a surprisingly decent painter

Alastair Sooke | MSN | 20th May 2026

Some readers will wonder if Churchill has sufficient artistic cred to grace the pages of this newsletter. Well, the writer is emphatic that “on occasion he was surprisingly decent”, especially his landscapes of the Atlas mountains and of Marrakech. Admittedly he did not have the “blazing audacity” of Matisse but “occasionally a painting by him really comes together”. Comments by the curator (here) appear to indicate the show was not her idea.

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