The Easel

6th October 2020

David Hockney’s Paintings Are World Renowned, But He Never Lost His Desire to Draw

While there may be some unevenness in Hockney’s overall output, when it comes to drawing he is a “master”. What jumps out from this current New York show is his variety – pencil, charcoal, Polaroid, iPad – the emotion he is able to convey about those he sketches, and an allegiance to the truth.  Enthuses one writer “the intensity of Hockney’s self-inspection, fag in mouth, bears comparison with Rembrandt.” Images are here.

The Later Work of Dorothea Tanning

Art history’s coverage of Tanning is rather one dimensional. Recognition came more from her marriage to Max Ernst than her own “almost photo-realistic” surrealism. Beyond that, not much is said. In fact, she left surrealism behind. Her later works were “unprecedented creations as much about the paint itself as about what she painted. [She] accomplishes everything the abstract expressionists set out to do.” A recent biography is covered here.

The Demolition of LACMA: Art Sacrificed to Architecture

Fierce controversy over the re-build of Los Angeles’ major museum stems from disagreements about how art should be displayed. The approved plan aims to avoid displays that are “Eurocentric” or that impose a “hierarchical narrative”. Opponents think the museum’s collection should provide context for items on display. An aggravation – the new plan diminishes gallery display space. The writer’s view: the plan is “a very expensive betrayal of the public trust”.

Gregory Crewdson’s photos reveal melancholy and mystery in small-town America

Crewdson specializes in constructed images – photographs where he creates many aspects of the image. This practice may sound like contemporary movie-making but actually has a history in photography going back to Victorian times. His current work, set in a “dreary post-industrial town”, exudes a sense of malaise.  Says one writer, his are “half-stories, with no prelude and no denouement”.

29th September 2020

Matters Of Fact

Bechtle was one of several important realist painters to come out of 1960’s San Francisco. A meticulous photo realist, he always worked from photos. While careful to borrow photography’s “veracity”, he still played painterly tricks with perceptions of scale and depth. “Bechtle grapples with serious issues of representation, but he does so in such a laboriously off-hand way that it takes a while for a viewer to realize what the artist is up to, and just how good he is.”