The Easel

27th October 2026

Frick Collection Puts Spotlight on Siena’s Renaissance Role with Rare Bronze Sculpture Exhibition

Siena has long been overshadowed by glorious Florence. Renewed appreciation of early Renaissance Sienese painting is occurring and it is happening in sculpture too. Sienese sculptors focused heavily on bronze, even though it was more expensive than marble. Donatello and Vecchietta were widely influential, including on a later Michelangelo. They wanted their bronze works to have more “physical and emotional reality. [This was] a golden age of bronze sculpture”.

20th October 2026

New Show, Same Lichtenstein

Lichtenstein changed art by re-creating images drawn from comic books and advertising. His use of these images was, he explained, “not to reproduce it … I do it in order to recompose it”. His anticipation of industrially produced imagery (think AI) reflected what one writer calls “a singular human perception that rivalled Cézanne’s”. While acknowledging his enormous influence this writer says Lichtenstein feels too familiar – “new relevance does not necessarily produce new revelation”.