The Easel

11th October 2022

Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered

Jessica Skwire Routhier | Antiques and the Arts Weekly | 20th September 2022

An odd tale. When New York’s MoMA came across Hirshfield in 1940, his eccentric, powerful images of animals, people and landscapes persuaded them to hold a solo exhibition. Despite support from the art elite, the city’s critics were appalled and Hirshfield disappeared from art world conversations. The problem, it seems, was that he was a self-taught outsider, leading the critics to accuse MoMA of a “cult of amateurism”. The artist now has a major show, having been “more or less out of sight” since 1950.

So Vermeer did not paint ‘Girl With a Flute.’ Why think less of it?

Philip Kennicott | The Washington Post | 7th October 2022

The disputed authenticity of a prized Vermeer in the US has been resolved. It’s not by him. Most likely, it was painted by someone close to him, perhaps with his encouragement. It now joins the numerous great works without a clear attribution. There are as many such works as there are great works with a firm attribution. So, should attribution be such a big deal? The museum that owns the work intends to continue displaying it. “We love art by adopting it, not by looking for its birth certificate.”

4th October 2022

Do Ho Suh’s Translucent Architectures

Lucy Ives | Frieze | 21st September 2022

“Home”, says Suh, “is what we carry with us”. That’s a neat introduction to his distinctive sculptures of house interiors and household objects that he makes with transparent polyester fabric. His pieces are often at a 1:1 scale, a rather sharp contradiction to their “diaphanous” appearance. Says the reviewer, “You feel joy being near one of Suh’s [houses], as well as a certain alarm … we recognize Suh’s structures as architecture, even as we see them as insubstantial, kite-like entities”.

Whistler’s ‘Peacock Room’ Open After Weeks of Restoration

Roger Catlin | Smithsonian Magazine | 29th September 2022

Asked to decorate a dining room in the house of Frederick Leyland, a shipping magnate, Whistler got carried away. What started out as a “very slight” request resulted in a “showy chamber of blue and gold”. Whistler was thrilled but not his patron. Their confrontation contributed to Whistler’s subsequent bankruptcy. Leyland learned to live with the room and it is now regarded as “one of the masterworks of late 19th-century art and design”. A virtual view is here.

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