The Blog

Studio Notes

Art news, read by an artist. A daily dispatch from the visual-arts world — museums, discoveries, controversies, and whatever the auction houses are up to — told the way I'd tell it over coffee.

Loli Mari Montalvo

Artist & Creative Director

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Édouard Manet's painting Olympia: a nude white woman reclines on white sheets, looking straight at the viewer, while a Black woman in a pale pink dress stands behind the bed holding a large bouquet wrapped in paper. A small black cat arches at the foot of the bed against a dark green background.

Latest · Exhibitions

The Woman Holding the Flowers Finally Gets the Painting

For 160 years, everyone looked at Olympia. Chris Ofili just painted the woman standing next to her — and gave her back her name. A new show in Turin asks who gets to be the subject.

October 30, 2026 · 3 min read

Vincent van Gogh's Daubigny's Garden: a dense green garden painted in short, quick strokes, with a bed of pink, white and red flowers in the foreground, blue blooms and leafy trees across the middle, and a pale green house with shuttered windows along the top edge.

Art History

Van Gogh Ran Out of Canvas, So He Grabbed the Dish Towel

Flip over Van Gogh's Daubigny's Garden and you find red stripes: he painted it on a kitchen towel. Then the towel got stranded in America for the whole of the Second World War.

October 30, 2026 · 3 min