The Easel

19th August 2025

The Kinetic Force of Art-World Couple Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely Comes to Life in Somerset

The artistic imagination is usually so singular as to preclude collaboration. Saint Phalle and Tinguely were exceptions. Tinguely’s kinetic sculptures, wonky contraptions made from junk materials, differed profoundly from Saint Phalle’s paintings and jaunty figurative sculptures. Yet, things like colour choices or mechanical motifs showed that they traded ideas. Said Saint Phalle of their decades-long collaboration, “we couldn’t sit down together without creating something new”.  A review of Tinguely’s work is here.

12th August 2025

A revelatory new view of Barbara Hepworth

Famous in Britain, Hepworth is “unknown” in France, something a “stunning” show of her work there wants to change. The “radiant quietude” of her works contrasts sharply with artists like Giacometti and his heavily worked figures. Said Hepworth, “it was not dominance which one had to attain over material, but an understanding, almost a kind of persuasion”. Perhaps this respect for her materials gives her work a “gentleness and reserve”. An alternative (but lesser) review is here.