The Easel

7th April 2026

In the garden of the surreal

Rachael Garrahan | Ursula | 20th March 2026

Dismissed by Coco Chanel as “that Italian artist who’s making clothes”, Schiaparelli was “one of the most dazzlingly inventive designers of the 20th century”. She had a “comet-like” rise to fashion fame in 1930’s Paris with clothes that were “witty, not just pretty”. Later artistic collaborations – Giacometti, Cocteau, Schlumberger and most frequently Dali – made her an avant-garde figure,  “prescient” according to one writer.. However, as tastes changed after WW2, both surrealism and her business foundered.

1st April 2026

Painter Hurvin Anderson’s blend of memory and history is mesmerising at Tate Britain

Hannah Silver | Wallpaper | 25th April 2026

Anderson was born and raised in the English Midlands. Yet his “absolutely beautiful” paintings speak loudly of the experience of his family who emigrated from the Caribbean. He has painted barbershops repeatedly, places where Black men and women can “speak freely”. And then, ever-present in small details, are memories of the Caribbean. How do all these elements fit together? Says Anderson, its “being in one place but thinking about another,”

Start Here: 5 things to know about Michaelina Wautier

Staff | Royal Academy | 5th April 2026

The clamour around Wautier is building and building. She came from a well-off family, likely had a good  training in art, never married but shared a house with her artist brother near Brussels and died around 1689. She mastered an unusually wide range of genres, displaying both ambition and immense skill. Having been re-discovered only in the last decade, one writer anticipates more revelations. Seeing her work hung beside Rubens in a London show, another writer concludes, “Wautier is a giant”. A backgrounder is here.

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