issue 020: figuration, abstraction & our sense of place

This issue travels through art news, exhibition reviews, artist interviews, and major auction happenings. Plus some art-inspired fun facts (a snail named after Picasso!?).

Hi artsies,

I can’t believe we’ve made it to issue 20! Despite the chaos (macro & micro), this little practice still means so much to me, and I appreciate the support. 💞

This week I wrote from the road again, thinking about how bodies move through places and feelings through travel. The works that stood out last week centered around figuration, abstraction, and installation, each asking how form meets feeling, how identity shifts with context, and how place imprints itself on us. Plus, some big pieces going to auction, and some art-inspired fun facts.

First things first, some art news…

• We lost a Hollywood great (whose first ambition was to be a painter!?)

• A hidden Rembrandt reveals what is possibly the artist’s only known male portrait

• NYFW was rife with art history references

• One of the most prominent art patrons in the US died at 87

• A custom Warhol-painted 1979 BMW crushed and killed a man while unloading it for a Washington D.C. exhibition

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Figuration

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Abstraction

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Installation

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Auction Biggies

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Five Artsy Fun Facts

Wrapping up this newsletter with a bit of brevity amidst the serious headlines.

Fun fact…

• According to Renaissance gossip, painter Francesco Francia supposedly died of grief after seeing Raphael’s dazzling St Cecilia Altarpiece—though historians now think it was more likely a stroke than jealousy!

• One of the world’s tiniest snails, (2mm wide), was just named Anauchen picasso because its swirled shell recalls Picasso’s Cubism!

• Scientists just confirmed Jackson Pollock used the now-banned pigment manganese blue in Number 1A, 1948—a color that was once popular in swimming pools

• Florence’s art is so overwhelming that it has its own name: Florence or Stendhal Syndrome. It has, reportedly, caused visitors to faint, hallucinate, or even kiss strangers…?

• According to the Artnet Intelligence Report, Mid-Year Review 2025, these are the top-searched artists of the year so far.

Thanks for sticking with me for 20 weeks!

‘til next time,

tld-art

P.S. See all my pins from last week here.