The Easel

19th November 2019

Dora Maar: A solo retrospective

Before her relationship with Picasso Maar enjoyed commercial and artistic success as a surrealist-influenced photographer. The famous romance obliterated those early achievements. While now getting recognition, can Maar the artist be disentangled from Maar the muse? Probably not, concedes the curator: “it is simply impossible to represent the professional without the personal – they are intertwined.”

12th November 2019

Tutankhamun review – thrills and fun as King Tut gets the Hollywood treatment

What else is there to say about Tutankhamun? Only that which is so obvious it is overlooked. He was young, frail, an inconsequential ruler. The gold is fabulous but more impressive is the exquisite craft and refinement of lesser objects. Everyday objects like food containers give the show “real warmth”. And vulnerability; “they remind you that this is about death and the craving for something beyond it”.

Bridget Riley

Riley says of her own work: “One moment, there will be nothing to look at and the next second the canvas seems to refill, to be crowded with visual events.” Her favoured tools are the optical effects of patterns and the way colours jostle against each other. One critic thinks this is now passé. Really? Illusion has long been a central preoccupation of art. It’s difficult to see Riley as other than a strong contributor to that ancient tradition.