T List: Paul Thek’s Sketches and Paintings, on View in London

The Brooklyn-born artist Paul Thek gained recognition in New York’s 1960s art scene with his disturbingly realistic wax sculptures of raw meat housed in plexiglass cases and ephemeral installations of newspapers, candles, flowers and eggs that explored themes of mortality and spirituality. He was 54 when he died, in 1988, of complications related to AIDS. This month, a new show of Thek’s paintings, including works on paper and a previously unseen notebook of sketches and writings, opens at Thomas Dane Gallery in London, co-curated by the artist and lecturer Kenny Schachter and the fashion designer Jonathan Anderson, who recently displayed Thek’s sculptures in his spring 2025 men’s wear runway show for Loewe. This is the first British exhibition dedicated to Thek’s painting practice, and it showcases a quieter, more delicate side of the artist. His landscape paintings of Mediterranean coastlines and New York cityscapes, rendered in watercolor, acrylic and ink, are more dreamlike and meditative than his sculptures, offering an intimate glimpse of his visual universe. For Schacter, the paintings and works on paper encapsulate Thek’s artistic philosophy: “It was a never-ending, incomplete process.”