The Easel

21st October 2025

Taking a dance through Cecil Beaton’s fashionable world

Photographers can achieve fame because of their images or their glamour subjects. Beaton did both as well as becoming a celebrity himself. A “neo-romantic”, he conjured the glamour of English aristos and Hollywood stars, influencing fashion, photography and design – usually through the pages of Vogue. Beaton’s narrow view of fashion makes him somewhat anachronistic today with one writer admitting that “the artificiality of it all [is] wearying”. A piece about the giddy thrill of what goes with what is here.

14th October 2025

Rauschenberg’s New York and the problem of seeing only surfaces

A spate of exhibitions mark Rauschenberg’s 100th anniversary. The fact there are so many shows is testimony to his diversity – painting, photography, collage, assemblage. Not all this work was of high quality, but it was always inventive. His photography, for example, was skilful but really stood out when incorporated into his complex, layered work. In that aspect, Rauschenberg was prescient, his fragmented urban imagery anticipating today’s “civic crisis”.