Cecilia Beaux (1855–1942) was, in the words of her colleague William Merritt Chase, “not only the greatest living woman painter, but the best that has ever lived”, yet most people today would draw a blank at her name. A Philadelphia-born portraitist of the Gilded Age, she became the first woman to teach art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and painted everyone from First Lady Edith Roosevelt to French Premier Georges Clemenceau. She was routinely compared to John Singer Sargent, her male equivalent in fame and prestige. The fact that Sargent is a household name and Beaux is not hints at something depressingly familiar about how art history gets written.

To mark her birthday, here are five paintings by Beaux to feed your artistic soul.

1. The Last Days of Infancy (1883–85)

2. Sita and Sarita (1893–94)

3. Ernesta (Child with Nurse) (1894)

4. New England Woman (1895)

5. Man with the Cat (1898)

In a historic reunion that bridges the gap between European Modernism and Afro-Caribbean identity, Galerie Gmurzynska has announced a major exhibition dedicated to the intimate  relationship between Pablo Picasso and Wifredo Lam.

Running from now through June 30, 2026, at the gallery’s iconic Fuller Building location on East 57th, the exhibition marks the first comprehensive exploration of the duo’s mentorship and friendship. The exhibition, titled to reflect their lifelong bond, follows the finissage of the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) acclaimed retrospective, “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,” and will include several key works previously seen at MoMA.

The story began in Paris in May 1938, when Lam, a Cuban artist of African and Chinese descent, arrived with a letter of introduction from Salvador Dalí. The meeting was instantaneous in its impact. Picasso famously recognized a kindred spirit in Lam, declaring: “Lam, I think that you have my blood in you; you must be one of my relatives, a primo, a cousin.”

While Picasso served as a mentor, the relationship was one of mutual respect. Picasso’s fascination with African art found a living contemporary in Lam, who would eventually use the tools of Modernism to embark on what he called an “act of decolonization.”

“What we thought was interesting was that there was never a show done on the two of them together [since 1939],” says Isabelle Bscher, the third-generation owner of Galerie Gmurzynska. “The last dedicated two-man exhibition was at the Perls Gallery in New York in 1939. It was Lam’s first show in America.”

The exhibition will feature approximately 50 works spanning 1918 to 1978, including paintings, frescos, ceramics, and collages.

Highlighting the breadth of their careers, the Picasso selection includes two rare frescos from his 1918 honeymoon in Biarritz, as well as oil paintings from the 1940s that showcase his lifelong engagement with “primitive” arts. For Lam, the centerpiece is a rare Étude pour La Jungle (1943), alongside masterpieces from his estate and selections from his personal collection of indigenous art.

The venue itself holds historical weight. Between 1940 and 1946, the two artists frequently exhibited together at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, which was housed in the very same Fuller Building where Galerie Gmurzynska now stands.

In a contemporary twist, the exhibition will feature a fashion component highlighting Lam’s enduring influence on Caribbean creators. Rachel Scott, the Jamaican-born creative director of the brand Diotima and a recipient of the prestigious LVMH Prize in 2023, has collaborated with the Lam estate to create a collection inspired by his work.

“A lot of the pieces are jungle-inspired, much like Lam’s paintings,” Bscher explains. “His work couldn’t be more poignant today.” Several of Scott’s fashion pieces, featuring prints derived from Lam’s canvases, will be on display alongside the artworks.

To cement the historical importance of the event, Galerie Gmurzynska will release a 350-page scholarly volume. Featuring new research by experts such as Jérôme Neutres and archival materials never before published, the book is the first major publication to focus exclusively on the Picasso-Lam dialogue.

Isabelle Bscher, an art historian who took the helm of the gallery founded by her grandmother, sees this show as a continuation of the gallery’s mission to champion Modernist masters. Having grown up in the art world—joking that she “learned to walk at Art Basel”—Bscher has curated major shows for the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Joan Miró. This upcoming exhibition, however, feels particularly personal.

“Lam really met most of the 20th century’s greatest artists,” Bscher says. “But his relationship with Picasso was foundational. Bringing them back together in the Fuller Building, where they once showed during the 1940s, is a full-circle moment for art history.”

“Lam/Picasso” runs from April 23 to June 30, 2026 at Galerie Gmurzynska, Fuller Building, 595 Madison Avenue, 6th Floor, New York City. Visit gmurzynska.com for more information.

Photo credits: Top image, Isabelle Bscher, Diana Picasso, Ulla Parker, Vikram Chatwal, Photo Credit Michael Ostuni PMC. Second image, Isabelle Bscher by Gilles Bensimon, third photo, Isabelle Bscher by Udo Spreitzenbarth.

Some patterns are so distinctive they become inseparable from the artists who made them, transforming from design choice into an entire worldview. Our Culture reflects on three iconic patterns crafted and immortalised by visual artists:

Yayoi Kusama’s polka dots

Kusama’s polka dots might be the most recognisable pattern in contemporary art, covering not just canvases but sculptures, furniture, buildings, and Kusama herself. For Kusama, the dots are deeply personal, rooted in childhood hallucinations in which flowers spoke to her. She leaned into this experience, using repetition as both therapy and philosophy: the dot, she has said, represents the infinity of the universe, and she its single, dissolving point.

William Morris’s botanical repeats

Morris’s botanical pattern defined a whole movement. Working in Victorian England against the grain of industrialisation, Morris hand-designed intricate wallpapers and textiles, including Willow Bough, Strawberry Thief, and Acanthus, built from densely layered leaves, birds and flowers drawn straight from nature and medieval tapestry. His patterns were a statement about craftsmanship and beauty in the everyday life.

Keith Haring’s interlocking figures

Haring’s figures began their journey on the blank black advertising panels of the New York City subway in the early 1980s, where he would drop everything chalk his bold figures in looping sequences— crawling babies, barking dogs, you name it. The pattern-like repetition was intentional, for Haring wanted art that felt urgent and democratic.

Seventeenth-century Spain was a Habsburg empire fraying at the edges through costly wars and economic strain, yet simultaneously bursting with creative energy in what became known as the Siglo de Oro, or Golden Age. The Counter-Reformation gave artists urgent purpose, with the Church commissioning imagery designed to move the faithful and assert Catholic glory. Seville became the crucible in which all three of these great painters were forged.

Francisco de Zurbarán

Zurbarán is best remembered for his renderings of austere monks and candlelit stillness, but his palette was far broader than his reputation suggests. His still lifes, for instance, are inviting in their warm tones while The Virgin of the Rosary venerated by Carthusians speaks to the rich range of colour he worked with. Where he truly dazzled was in his extraordinary rendering of fabric, whether depicting the heavy wool of Franciscan habit or embroidered vestments so tactile you can practically feel the thread.

Diego Velázquez

Velázquez worked at the summit of Spanish power as court painter to Philip IV, resulting in a proximity to privilege that gave his work an intimacy with the ruling class. Notably, though, he used it to quietly subvert hierarchy, most famously in Las Meninas, where the king and queen appear only as reflections in a mirror while servants and a dog occupy centre stage. His technique was quite ahead of its time: loose impressionistic brushwork that edges into realism at a distance, influencing the French Impressionists two centuries later.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Murillo was perhaps the most beloved of the three in his own lifetime, and his works hint as to why. Where Zurbarán could feel severe and Velázquez cerebral, Murillo brought warmth and tenderness. His Immaculate Conception paintings, for instance, bathed the Virgin in silvery light and adoring cherubs. He co-founded the Seville Academy of Fine Arts in 1660 alongside Velázquez.