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    A New Show at the Royal Academy Celebrates Rarely Seen Impressionist Drawings, Including a Recovered Van Gogh

    It is little wonder that an art movement like Impressionism, popular for capturing the elusive immediacy of everyday life, would be drawn to drawing. Works on paper, historically relegated to the status of a preparatory sketch, soon became masterpieces in their own right. Emancipated from the formal rigor and slick stylisations of Rococo and Neoclassicist painting, the Impressionists were able to reveal something that felt much truer to real life. The course of modern art would never turn back.
    A new show at the Royal Academy in London brings together 77 drawings in pastel, charcoal and watercolor by Impressionists like Mary Cassatt, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Augustus Renoir, as well as prominent post-Impressionists like Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat. Many of these works are rarely exhibited in public because they are privately owned and their fragile materials can be vulnerable to the damaging effects of daylight.
    One highlight of the show, Van Gogh’s The Fortifications of Paris with Houses (1887), was nearly lost forever after it was stolen from Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery in 2003. The watercolor sketch and two other works by Gauguin and Picasso were miraculously recovered a day later, stashed by a public bathroom on the edge of Whitworth Park some 200 yards away. Having been removed from its frame and exposed to the elements on a particularly cold and damp day, the Van Gogh showed some signs of damage including a 5 inch tear on one side that has since been repaired. It was found with a smudged note stating: “The intention was not to steal. Only to highlight the woeful security.”
    The avant-garde compositions on view see their authors experiment with unusual vantage points, emotional expression, and greater spontaneity to create intimate figure studies, lively vignettes, and sensitive landscapes that capture something of nature’s ephemerality. These unrehearsed and unrestricted discoveries made on paper would go on to inform some of the best-loved canvases of the late 19th century and beyond.
    “Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec” runs through March 10, 2024. Check out more works from the show below.
    Vincent van Gogh, The Fortifications of Paris with Houses (1887). Photo: Michael Pollard, © The Whitworth, The University of Manchester.
    Odilon Redon, Ophelia Among the Flowers (c. 1905-08). Photo: © The National Gallery, London.
    Installation view of “Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, showing Edgar Degas, Dancer Seen from Behind (c. 1873). Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. Artwork: The Whitworth, The University of Manchester.
    Mary Cassatt, Portrait de Marie-Thérèse Gaillard (1894). Photo: © 2007 Christie’s Images Limited.
    Installation view of “Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, showing Edgar Degas, After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself (c.1890-95). Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. Artwork: The Whitworth, The University of Manchester.
    Georges Seurat, Seated Youth, Study for “Bathers at Asnières” (1883). Photo courtesy of National Galleries of Scotland.
    Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Circus: The Encore (1899).
    Installation view of “Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, showing Camille Pissarro, The Market Stall (1884). Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. Artwork: The Whitworth, The University of Manchester.
    Installation view of “Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry.

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    “LA JOTA” Urban Postcards G085 by Giulio Vesprini in Zaragoza, Spain

    Renowned street artist Giulio Vesprini has recently unveiled a captivating mural as part of the Asalto Festival in Zaragoza. Nestled in the enchanting “La Jota” neighborhood, this masterpiece finds its canvas amidst a place rich in history and architectural charm. La Jota, with its roots dating back to an ambitious 1947 housing project, was envisioned as a garden city, where modest-sized homes would be complemented by communal gardens or orchards.The visionary project aimed to provide affordable housing for local workers, with meticulous planning by architects José Beltrán and Fausto García Marco. The neighborhood’s name pays homage to the construction company, “Obras y Construcciones Damán,” situated on Avenida Castaluña.Giulio Vesprini’s contribution to this historic locale transcends traditional boundaries, adding a contemporary layer to La Jota’s narrative. Through vibrant strokes and imaginative design, the mural not only revitalizes the neighborhood’s aesthetic but also serves as a tribute to the visionary spirit of its post-war architects. As spectators traverse the streets of La Jota, they are greeted by a visual feast that seamlessly intertwines the old and the new, a testament to the enduring impact of art on community and urban landscapes. The Asalto Festival has once again become a platform for artistic expression, bringing together history, architecture, and modern creativity in the heart of Zaragoza.Photo credit: Marcos Cebrian More

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    Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood on Making Art and Music—And Sometimes Both at Once

    Earlier this year, as the Thom Yorke-led trio The Smile was recording its sophomore album, the newly announced Wall of Eyes, a separate, yet related, act of creation was taking place close by.  
    In a room at London’s Abbey Road Studios where the band was working on the record, Yorke’s long-time collaborator Stanley Donwood had set up an art studio stocked with easels and canvases. There, over two weeks, the pair would turn out a run of paintings—of fragmented topographies, alien forms—as a live audio feed from the neighboring control room was piped into the space. 
    It was a project of “simultaneous composition,” Donwood said over email. “I find it very useful to listen to the music that will be associated with the artwork while the music is being made, while the artwork is being made.” 
    “The music and the visual work both matter very much to me,” Yorke added. “One liberates the other a lot of the time.” 
    Fittingly, a painting from the session will grace the cover of Wall of Eyes, while all 10 works will form the second part of Yorke and Donwood’s The Crow Flies series, going on view at Tin Man Art gallery from December 6. The new showcase, titled “The Crow Flies: Part Two,” follows the successful debut of the duo’s works at the London gallery in September, which saw Maastricht’s Bonnefanten Museum acquiring one of the abstract landscapes. 
    Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, Aggag (2022). Courtesy of Tin Man Art.
    While the works in part one of the series were created in an Oxford studio in the wake of 2020, Donwood said, “things were much freer, in every way, for the second phase.” He admitted to starting the project with a clear mindset, while the Abbey Road building provided inspiration “in a very vague and non-specific way” (that is, “aside from the ghostly Beatles wandering about”), allowing the duo to work intuitively—or at least attempt to. 
    “Intuition is hard to quantify and I think when it genuinely happens, that’s very rare. It’s an excellent feeling when something just goes right; but it’s really, really infrequent,” the artist explained.  
    Still, looking at these latest paintings, it’s easy to imagine them emerging from a shared subconscious. Some, like The Lakes, Aggag, and Goom, depict eerie vistas with abstract shards juxtaposed against organic contours. Others, such as Frozen Raw and One of Many, bring the viewer up close to otherworldly silhouettes. Might they be snapshots of exterior as much as interior landscapes? 
    Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, Frozen Raw (2022). Courtesy of Tin Man Art.
    Kind of, Donwood said. He brought up the pirate maps and topographic charts that inspired the first The Crow Flies paintings, which in turn represented arcane, complex navigational aids. These new works, he said, “are pictures of the places you might see if you follow the maps.” 
    The paintings were created with egg tempera, with the layers blended to evoke the weathering of centuries-old art or frescoes. The choice of linen as canvas was intended to recall vellum or parchment. In Donwood’s telling, the idea was to recreate the effect of Medieval murals that had been “repaired by considerably less skilled people” (see: the infamous botched Jesus restoration).
    Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, River Spikes (2023). Courtesy of Tin Man Art.
    While the textures of the works in The Crow Flies depart from Yorke and Donwood’s previous outings, the narratives and motifs that fuel them—haunting abstraction, reimagined artifacts, esoteric terrains—are the same that have informed their decades-long partnership.  
    Since the early ’90s, Donwood has created the bulk of cover art for Yorke’s musical projects, from Radiohead to Atoms for Peace to his solo work, some of which featured contributions from the singer-songwriter himself. In 2006, the duo’s joint paintings for Radiohead’s 2003 record Hail to the Thief were first exhibited at Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona (with Yorke using the moniker Dr. Tchock). More recently, they curated a showcase of Donwood’s artwork for 2001’s Kid A to accompany a Christie’s auction in 2021.  
    In working together, Donwood and Yorke have established a shared visual language, one that is perhaps now tough to tease out from their individual aesthetic. But maybe that’s the point. 
    “There isn’t a lot of navigating to be done,” Yorke said about balancing their individual and collaborative creativity. “The effort to understand where someone else is coming from—that’s the point. So then when you look back at what you’ve done, it speaks to you in a way you didn’t expect.” 
    Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, The Lakes (2023). Courtesy of Tin Man Art.
    In fact, according to the pair, their collaboration seems to thrive on necessary friction. “Essential interference” is how Donwood characterized it, while Yorke called it “Midi/USB,” referring to the opposite heads of a connecting cable commonly used with musical equipment. 
    Yorke’s is an apt analogy. If music is the root and throughline of his and Donwood’s shared visual art practice, it has arguably also served as the glue. 
    “It was partly because we both found ourselves making record covers… and then got carried away,” Yorke explained. “And because of what has developed between the two of us. I never expected that to happen honestly.” 
    “The Crow Flies: Part Two” is on view at Tin Man Art, 4 Cromwell Place, London, December 6–10. 

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    Artist Retrospective: Tristan Eaton

    In the vibrant tapestry of contemporary street art, Tristan Eaton stands as a luminary, celebrated for his awe-inspiring large-scale murals that grace urban landscapes worldwide. Born in Hollywood in 1978 and seasoned by a nomadic upbringing, Eaton’s journey from London to Detroit and finally to the bustling streets of New York at the age of 20 has indelibly shaped his artistic narrative. Eaton’s canvas, expansive city walls, bears witness to a synthesis of techniques, materials, and ideas – a harmonious marriage of the traditional and the avant-garde.Pow! Wow! Long Beach Festival, 2015Eaton’s artistic roots delve deep into the rebellious spirit of graffiti culture, evident in the freehand execution of his sprawling murals. From billboards to dumpsters, his troubled teenage years marked the canvas of the urban environment. Art, for Eaton, became a transformative force, steering him away from a tumultuous path. His journey led him to the world of designer toys, where, at the age of 18, he designed his first toy for Fisher Price, laying the foundation for his iconic status in the designer toy realm.Beyond the realm of street art, Eaton’s influence extends into the commercial world, consulting with global brands like Hasbro, Pepsi, and Nike. His role as a creative leader is further exemplified by his contribution to the renowned Dunny figure, a 3-inch tall Roto-Cast Soft Vinyl creation. Eaton’s artistic vision transcends geographical boundaries, with his murals adorning cityscapes not only across the USA but also in France, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Mexico.Explore further below to see a curated collection featuring Tristan Eaton’s most exceptional works.Dallas, Texas, 2021Having taken on a sizable project, Tristan utilized an expansive 8,500 square foot canvas to paint a mural concept that paid homage to Deep Ellum’s roots and future. The inspiration behind this empowering mural was drawn from Dallas’ first Black architect, William Sidney, the dynamic music scene, the native fashion icon Jerry Hall, and the distinctive Texas armadillo. Tristan’s vision, inspired by these diverse elements, created a mural that honored the rich cultural history of Deep Ellum, capturing both its historical legacy and forward-looking spirit.New York, USA, 2020Collaborating with Montefiore Health System and Alto NY, artist Tristan Eaton crafted an iconic masterpiece commemorating the heroic endeavors of nurses and medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. This striking tribute extends to healthcare workers globally. For those in the vicinity, the expansive mural can be found in Manhattan at 34th Street and 8th Avenue, serving as a testament visible to all in New York and beyond.Manhattan, New York, 2018In the mural above, Tristan Eaton made a return to NYC, leaving his mark on the iconic Bowery Wall in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Joining the ranks of esteemed street artists like Keith Haring, Banksy, and Shepard Fairey, Tristan, known for his striking collage style, seamlessly blended a vast color palette paying homage to NYC influences such as Haze and Seen. The mural, titled “Intermission,” captures the essence of Eaton’s artistry. Witness Tristan in action and marvel at the jaw-dropping final piece in the photos below.Detroit, Michigan, 2014In this project, Tristan Eaton was in Detroit, Michigan, having received an invitation from the Library Street Collective Gallery to create a new mural. Titled “Crime Fighter,” the American street artist swiftly crafted his trademark patchwork masterpiece, drawing inspiration from a 1960s portrait of his mother.New York City, 2015Eaton also actively participates in numerous festivals, both locally and internationally. In 2015, he immersed himself in Sweden for the 2015 installment of the No Limit Boras Street Art Festival. Taking to the streets of Boras, the Los Angeles-based artist efficiently brought to life this stunning new piece titled “Out Of Sight.” True to his style, Tristan crafted his signature patchwork imagery, incorporating a myriad of diverse images and intricate details.Last 2016, Our coverage of POW! WOW! Hawaii included Tristan Eaton. Titled “Aloha Dreamland,” the painting showcased Eaton’s distinctive patchwork style, with a subject matter rooted in the local context this time. The piece draws inspiration from the romantic allure that Hawaii holds for people, embodying a vortex of love and enchantment.Tristan Eaton’s prominence in contemporary street art is marked by expansive murals gracing global urban landscapes. Beyond street art, Eaton collaborates with global brands and leaves an indelible mark on cityscapes worldwide.Check out our #Tristan Eaton page for more stunning works from talented muralist! More

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    Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz Will Showcase Their Landmark Art Collection at the Brooklyn Museum

    Grammy-winning singer Alicia Keys and her husband Kasseem Dean, the rapper and producer known by his stage name Swizz Beatz, will exhibit their landmark collection of works by Black artists at the Brooklyn Museum. The show, Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, will run from February 10 to July 7, 2024.
    “Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys have been among the most vocal advocates for Black creatives to support Black artists through their collecting, advocacy, and partnerships. In the process, they have created one of the most important collections of contemporary art,” museum director Anne Pasternak said.
    The exhibition will bring together works by around 40 artists in the couple’s collection. Known as the Dean Collection, the trove boasts artworks by the likes of Arthur Jafa, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Amy Sherald, Lorna Simpson, Kehinde Wiley, and Esther Mahlangu, as well as the largest number of works by Gordon Parks in private hands.
    The show will open with an introduction to the creative lives of the Deans, with sections on different aspects of their collection, such as “On the Shoulders of Giants,” highlighting artists who “have left an indelible mark on the world.” Another section, “Giant Conversations,” will explore Black social issues, while “Giant Presence” will show monumental artworks such as Abney’s Catfish (2017).
    Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Model who embraced natural hairstyles at AJASS photoshoot) (c. 1970, printed 2018). Photo courtesy of the Dean Collection, Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.
    The Fallin’ crooner and her husband, both born and raised in New York, have long been vocal about their support of African American creatives, not least with their art collection.
    Speaking to Artnet News in 2019, Dean characterized growing his collection of African American artworks as “building a family I didn’t even have in music, where there’s a little bit of a disconnect sometimes because of competition and wanting to be the best. I felt something different with the artists.”
    Dean was on the board of the Brooklyn Museum from at least 2019 until just last month. In an email, the museum confirmed that the couple is “not funding the exhibition,” clarifying that the show is “being produced by the Brooklyn Museum.” The exhibition is organized by the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art Kimberli Gant and curatorial assistant Indira A. Abiskaroon.
    “You have to understand that this is a different game than buying a piece of jewelry or buying a car,” Dean said in 2019 about his collecting strategy. “This is actually adding to the conversation.”
    See more works in the exhibition below.
    Derrick Adams, Man in Grayscale (Swizz) (2017). Photo courtesy of The Dean Collection, Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.
    Deana Lawson, Soweto Queen (2017). Photo courtesy of the Dean Collection, Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.
    Ebony G. Patterson, . . they were just hanging out . . . you know . . . talking about . . . ( . . . when they grow up . . .) (2016). Photo courtesy of the Dean Collection, Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.
    Tschabalala Self, Father (2019). Photo courtesy of The Dean Collection, Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.

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    The Other Side of Rothko: 5 Intimate, Must-See ‘Paintings on Paper’

    2023 has been the year of Mark Rothko. He is currently the subject of a landmark exhibition in Paris, which includes an impressive 115 paintings that redefines the celebrated Abstract Expressionist’s oeuvre. For anyone stateside who is experiencing FOMO, however, the smaller “Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper” has opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It’s also a revelatory show, albeit less grandiose than the Paris survey.
    Though Rothko is most often associated with majestic canvases, these more intimate paintings, which the artist regarded as finished works in their own right rather than preliminary sketches, reveal a new side to his practice. Alongside his archetypal, hazy fields of color from the 1950s and 1960s, visitors can see figurative works from the 1930s and semi-surreal experimental constructions from the 1940s. In some of these early paintings, soft swathes and unfurling pools of watercolor pigment sit flat on the surface of the construction paper, foreshadowing Rothko’s later anti-illusionistic style.
    The exhibition runs through March 31, 2024 and will travel to the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway next year. Adam Greenhalgh, the associate curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, spoke with us about six paintings on paper that evince Rothko’s journey towards abstraction, never losing sight of painting’s richly expressive potential.
    Untitled (seated woman in striped blouse) (1933–34)
    Mark Rothko, Untitled (seated woman in striped blouse) (1933-34). Photo: © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
    Adam Greenhalgh: “To supplement his meager income during the 1930s, Rothko taught children’s art classes at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center. He took the job seriously, encouraging students to prioritize self-expression over technical skill. He also practiced what he preached, painting quickly and intuitively, delighting in the fluidity and translucence of water-based paints. In this portrait, pools of paint are offset by untouched construction paper, a material also used by Rothko’s young students. Watercolor billows in currents around the woman’s head, beneath her chin, and at the base of her neck, conveying a forceful personality.
    This work illustrates how Rothko took advantage of the often-unpredictable results produced by such a liquid paint. And demonstrates his admiration for portraiture of the past, which he praised for its ‘eternal interest in the human figure, character, and emotions—in short, in the human drama.’ It also hints at the facile technique and expressive content of his mature works to come.”
    Untitled (seated figure in interior) (ca. 1938)
    Mark Rothko, Untitled (seated figure in interior) (c. 1938). Photo: © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
    Adam Greenhalgh: “Rothko was always concerned with the relationship between an artwork and its viewer. In this watercolor, a figure sits before an easel painting of a blue-skinned, pink-haired alter ego. The latter beckons invitingly with a curved blue hook of an arm. Bubblegum pink reflects onto the viewer’s face, tinting it. The pair stare at each other intensely, locked in silent communion.
    Throughout his entire career, Rothko sought to foster engaging and potentially transformative encounters between viewers and paintings. This watercolor encapsulates the kind of viewing experience Rothko hoped to cultivate with an attentive and committed viewer.”
    Omen (1946)
    Mark Rothko, Omen (1946). Photo: © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
    Adam Greenhalgh: “In the 1940s, Rothko looked to the past for a symbolic language that could address what he saw as the tragic nature of human experience. He found subjects in mythology, ancient art, archaeology, religion, and natural history, and stylistic inspiration in the work of European surrealists like Joan Miró and Yves Tanguy, who aimed to visualize the unconscious mind. Omen, with its cruciform composition, echoes 17th-century paintings that show Jesus Christ being taken down from the cross after his death. The suggestion of a figure at right, with upstretched arms and dangling legs, evokes a lifeless body.
    Rothko felt that tragic biblical subjects of intense communal grief were emotionally relevant to his own time, as the world grappled with the brutality and terror of events like World War II and the Holocaust. Omen, with its pale, near monochrome palette, soft hazy appearance, and emotionally resonant subject, conveys in a powerfully moving manner, what Rothko saw as the essentially tragic nature of human experience.”
    Untitled (ca. 1948)
    Mark Rothko, Untitled (c. 1948). Photo: © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
    Adam Greenhalgh: “In 1947 Rothko declared that the “familiar identity of things has to be pulverized.” His mid-1940s symbolic motifs and linear compositions dissolved into hazy shapes and swirling backgrounds. This watercolor exemplifies a transitional period where Rothko is on the brink of developing his classic format. Squiggles and glyphs hint at a half-length figure—torso, shoulders, and head—emerging from a colorful soup, like a final echo of earlier figurative work.
    Out of quasi-abstractions like this emerged the rectangular blocks and horizontal bands that came to characterize his art from 1949 onward. Rothko adapted the thin washes and dilute glazes of watercolor paintings like this one to the canvases that would dominate his output for the final years of the decade.”
    Untitled (1969)
    Mark Rothko, Untitled (1969). Photo: © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
    Adam Greenhalgh: “Despite being, by all accounts, unwell and depressed following a near fatal aortic aneurysm in 1968, Rothko, somewhat surprisingly, made hundreds of paintings on paper in the final two years of his life. They vary greatly in composition, palette, and effect, from fiery and explosive to placid and caliginous. Many, like this one, display a startling vigor and vitality, erupting with volcanic energies and compositional tension.
    Rothko once said: “You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral? You should look again. I’m the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colors there hides the final cataclysm.”
    In late paintings on paper, amplification is the name of the game—in scale, in the energy and force of paint handling, and in the immediacy, intensity, and potency of the colors. This large orange and crimson painting is exemplary. He worked energetically with a large brush, streaking and smearing the paint across the paper. His powerful gestures are recorded in the quick-drying acrylic paint. Rothko began this work with a thin base layer of pink ink, which makes the orange background almost blindingly phosphorescent.”
    Untitled (1969)
    Mark Rothko, Untitled (1969). Photo: © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
    Adam Greenhalgh: “Rothko’s late paintings on canvas trend dark—blacks, purples, maroons. After he died by suicide on February 25, 1970, the dark palette of these works became associated with his death—a link that persisted.
    But, in the final months of his life, he produced a lesser-known suite of ethereal paintings on paper with soft, cloudlike edges surrounded by margins of pale paper. These late works, including this radiant pink painting, undermines any simple association between dark palette and mental or physical health. It is intriguing to speculate where Rothko might have taken his work after this startling painting.”
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    A Second Mona Lisa Goes on View in Turin—But Did Leonardo Actually Paint It?

    It’s a question that has eluded art lovers for centuries. Did Leonardo da Vinci paint another, similar, but slightly younger-looking portrait of the Mona Lisa with her famed, captivating smile, a decade before the final version that now hangs in the Louvre?
    The Swiss-based Mona Lisa Foundation certainly thinks so. The foundation, which represents the private owners of the painting is exhibiting the work in Turin’s Promotrice delle Belle Arti gallery, in an exhibition titled “The First Mona Lisa,” until May 26, 2024.
    “We have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Leonardo painted two Mona Lisas and this is the only candidate to be the second,” said Joël Feldman, general secretary of the Mona Lisa Foundation, speaking to The Times.
    The foundation said the painting was likely made around 1505, and depicts a similarly positioned woman, believed to be based on the Florentine noblewoman Lisa Gherardini. A pastoral background can also be seen in this “earlier” work, however, it was left unfinished and the subject is framed by two columns, which do not appear in Leonardo’s most famous painting.
    Better known as the “Isleworth Mona Lisa,” the controversial painting’s previous owner, Hugh Blaker acquired it in 1913, believing it to be the work of the Renaissance master, and brought it to his home in West London. In 1936, the American gallery owner and collector Henry Pulitzer acquired it, and long-argued that it was an authentic Leonardo. The portrait was eventually purchased by its current owners, a consortium of investors who have periodically displayed the painting.
    The exhibition, which includes multimedia displays cataloging decades of the foundation’s research into the portrait’s origins, along with background about Leonardo’s life and the Italian Renaissance period, is an “opportunity to also present the massive strides that have been made in the past few years to cement the attribution of the work to Leonardo,” Feldman said in a statement.
    The foundation has notably worked with scientists, such as John Asmus, at the University of California, San Diego, who conducted tests strongly suggesting the same artists painted the faces of both women.
    However, renowned Leonardo expert Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor of art history at the University of Oxford, will have none of it. The foundation is “in a phase of trying to promote [the portrait] again,” a move that Kemp told Artnet News is common for syndicates attempting to increase the value of a work—an idea the foundation has denied in the past.
    Kemp insisted there was “no indication” the work is dated prior to the Mona Lisa, which is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1517, and the fact that the portrait was done on canvas, when Leonardo was known to only paint on wooden surfaces, was a major clue that it is a copy.
    Additionally, Kemp’s examination of the “earlier” work led him to the conclusion it was done by looking at a “finished picture, rather than what we know is under the surface.” For instance, Leonardo used layers of binder with small amounts of pigment to slowly build a “very elusive,” soft effect, which is evident in how the master avoided clear, or sharp edges when rendering his subjects.
    The Swiss foundation’s “earlier” version, “does a shot at doing this softness… but it doesn’t have this sort of light passing through all these layers of glaze,” Kemp said, adding that Leonardo’s visual technique is notoriously difficult to imitate. Asked if he had any of his own ideas about who could have painted the mysterious, second portrait, he said he had no theories as to its origin, noting that identifying authors of copied artworks was “almost impossible.”

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    A New Es Devlin Exhibition Reveals the Humble Beginnings of Her Maximalist Visions

    Every one of Es Devlin’s designs and sculptures, however ambitious and monumental, is built on the most modest of foundations: paper. With it, the British artist sketches and draws, cuts and folds, sculpts and manipulates to give form to her ideas, before they’re constructed in life-sized proportions. It’s the ideal medium, she said: “Paper is so cheap and ephemeral as a core material, which means there’s real freedom within the mark-making.”
    Devlin was speaking to me at last week’s preview of “An Atlas of Es Devlin,” her first monographic museum exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt in New York. Dressed in minimalist black-and-white, she was unpacking the centrality of paper in the show, which delves into her three-decade practice by disgorging her vast archive of drawings, cardboard models, illuminated paper cuts, and other ephemera. Put together, they illustrate her creative process right down to the last design note.
    For an artist best known for her kinetic sculptures, immersive installations, and massive stage designs for the likes of Beyoncé and Adele, “Atlas” is a surprisingly intimate exhibition. Or as Devlin puts it, the show has allowed her to access “radical vulnerability,” a tip she picked up from art critic Jerry Saltz’s 2020 book, How to Be an Artist. 
    Es Devlin in her studio. Photo courtesy of Es Devlin.
    “It’s very personal,” she said about the presentation. “This is literally me getting stuff out of the bin bag stuff I made along the way, not least to retrace my own steps and find my own threads, but also hopefully to help people understand that the large-scale works have quite humble roots.” 
    Trained in fine art and theater design at London’s Central Saint Martins, Devlin commenced her practice in the mid ’90s creating sets—each more sculpturally daring than the last—for venues such as the Bush Theatre and London Theatre. Her canvas would expand in the coming years as she signed onto projects from opera and ballet productions to fashion activations such as the immersive labyrinth she designed for Chanel. By 2012, she was taking on the closing ceremony for the London Olympics, then in 2022, the NFL Super Bowl halftime show. 
    Es Devlin sketches on view at “An Atlas of Es Devlin.” Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution.
    But some of Devlin’s most high-profile works have been her designs for arena concerts, headlined by names from The Weeknd to Kanye West. She built a cheeky stage for Miley Cyrus’s 2014 tour centered on the pop star’s infamous tongue; she installed massive rotating, illuminated sculptures for Beyoncé’s Formation World Tour. For Adele’s 2016 concerts, Devlin built a huge screen on stage, projected with the songstress’s closed eyes, which opened once she sang the first line of the first song, “Hello.” 
    “It starts with the music and lyrics—I take lyrics really seriously,” Devlin explained of her approach to these large stages. “Then it goes into a broader understanding of the context: Why was the piece written? What’s the context of the work? What’s the story behind it? And then beyond that, it’s really also instinctive: what does the space need?” 
    Models on view at “An Atlas of Es Devlin.” Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution
    However big these projects get, though, Devlin has not lost sight of what—and who—she’s building for: “We have a responsibility to the audience, whether it’s in a small play for 75 people or in a stadium for 200,000. If we’re asking them to gather, then we must hold space for them and for the performer who’s offering absolute vulnerability.”
    Devlin has likewise centered the experiential in “Atlas.” Before they enter the show, visitors are ushered into a darkened room, decorated to look like a studio space with large books open at the table and sketches tacked to the walls (more paper!). There, projections mapped onto physical objects, accompanied by the artist’s voiceover, relay her creative process in detail. “Every audience,” Devlin narrates at one point, “is a temporary society.” 
    Installation photo of “An Atlas of Es Devlin” at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photo: Es Devlin Studio, courtesy of Es Devlin.
    That principle, tinged with the utopian, has fueled Devlin’s community and participation-centric installations—her immersive mazes and model cities that encourage viewers to better engage with civilizational shifts and structures. 
    Memory Palace (2019), a chronological 3D landscape, aimed to chart and provoke evolutions in human thought, just as The Conference of Trees (2021), an indoor installation of 197 trees at COP 26, emphasized the environmental imperative. Her early experiment with A.I., Poem Portraits (2019), which invited users to contribute a word to a collective, algorithmically generated poem, urged humans to consider machine collaboration—on their own terms.  
    Memory Palace (2019) by Es Devlin, at the Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery, in Ealing, London. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images.
    A.I. today, she said, “is beginning to be more than human intelligence.” As a “useful” way of approaching the tool, she pointed out that nature and biology, with their microbial and bacterial entities, encompass more than one intelligence. “When I look at a neural network visually and I look at a bifurcating network of rhizomatic systems,” she added, “I see the connection.”
    That Devlin’s work spans mediums and achieves scale makes sense for a world-builder whose project has been to interrogate our species’ relationship with everything else in our environment. It’s a profound venture that, in her words, “invites audiences to practice ‘interbeing.’” 
    Installation view of “An Atlas of Es Devlin” at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photo: Es Devlin Studio, courtesy of Es Devlin.
    At “Atlas,” we’re speaking in a gallery lined with her earliest artworks—nude studies etched in notebooks, abstract oil portraits, charcoal sketches—which she likened to “work at school art shows.” Still, for her, they contain seeds for her latter-day practice.  
    She pointed to a series of drawings she created of a girl trapped in various boxes, a juxtaposition of an organic form against a geometric one. In another richly painted work is depicted a tuba entwined with leaves and branches, presenting a “common harmony” between nature and manmade instruments.  
    “Some of the work that I’m making now is still interested in how choral music and forms of species can be seen to be continued.” she said. “The project of my practice is to explore that continuity between us and more-than-human forms, be that A.I. or every other living thing on the planet. I do think the most useful application of the craft I’ve been handed over 30 years is to explore and express that sense of continuity.” 
    “An Atlas of Es Devlin” is on view at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street, New York, through August 11, 2024. 
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