FEATURED STORY

The loss of Celeste Dupuy-Spencer in April was felt painfully on Phaidon.com. This most talented and engaging of artists, one who felt too keenly the anguish of life, left us way before her prime. We will never know where her work, unparalleled in its depiction of a dispirited age, might have gone.

Of the many great pieces of writing by Nina MacLaughlin in our new book on the artist, Burning in the Eyes of the Maker, completed while Celeste was still alive, is one entitled Self Portrait in the Dark. It accompanies a similarly titled self portrait of Celeste, her eyes staring out from the canvas to meet the gaze of the viewer.

In the piece of writing that accompanies the self-portrait, Nina MacLaughlin composes fragile elements of the artist’s being into a compelling portrait, a beautifully evocative piece of writing worthy of a beautiful, evocative artist.