Gerald Laing | A Retrospective by The Fine Art Society

GERALD LAING

THE FINE ART SOCIET Y LONDON 19 S E P T E M B E R â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 13 O C TO B E R 2016 b|

GE A D A ING

GERALD L AING 1936â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2011 A RETROSPECTIVE

GERALD LAING, FROM POP TO ANTI-POP AND BACK AGAIN marco livingstone

More than half a century since the simultaneous emergence of different forms of Pop Art on both sides of the Atlantic, its history continues to be rewritten and reassessed. Even the lists of its main protagonists and judgments as to their relative importance remain open to dispute and interpretation. If Pop artists were reconfigured as a football team, there might not even be agreement on the composition of the first xi. Younger than his American counterparts, Gerald Laing was nevertheless quick enough off the mark even as a student at St Martin’s School of Art in 1962 to have been welcomed into the ranks of the first wave of Pop Art in both London and New York (where he settled in 1964) and to have been included in some of the groundbreaking survey exhibitions and books on the movement. The clean, crisp look of his Pop paintings and his

preference for a detached, ‘hands-off’, technique, one that assimilated formal aspects of massmedia photography, graphic design and advertising, brought him more closely into alignment with the formal boldness and simplicity favoured by American colleagues such as Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana (for whom he worked briefly as an assistant in those early days) than with the more overtly painterly and narrative tendencies demonstrated by many of his British peers. This is particularly so with his use of stencils for the creation of hard-edged areas of vivid flat colour and his grids of dots made with the tip of the brush to emulate the half-tone screens of newspaper reproduction. The studied neutrality of Laing’s pictorial language was from the beginning, however, something of a mirage. The images he chose to paint related to strongly held passions, whether it be

Exhibition posters for (left) 4 Young Artists: Binder, Hall, Laing, Westwood at the ica, London 1964; and (right) Gerald Laing at The Richard Feigen Gallery, New York, 1967.

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Anna Karina (cat.6) displayed by the artist on the pavement outside St Martin’s School of Art, Charing Cross Road, London, 1963.

for glamorous bikini-clad young women and film stars, for the thrills and masculine heroism of space exploration, skydiving or dragster racing, or indeed for political figures and current events. Within that short period of his adhesion to a Pop language in painting, he moved seamlessly from French nouvelle vague cinema, as in Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Anna Karina (1963), to the giddy speed of dare-devil racing and gravity-defying airborne pyrotechnics by way of momentous events that changed the political landscape. His billboard-sized shaped canvas Lincoln Convertible (1964), based on a video still documenting the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, was begun very soon after that catastrophic event, in the heat of the moment and with the despair and grief shared by many on the Left, but conveyed in an apparently dispassionate manner that enabled the viewer to respond to the tragedy without feeling harangued.

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Laing’s path through Pop was meteoric, emerging suddenly and with an energy and visual dazzle that left an indelible impression that was just as quickly jettisoned in favour of alternative modes so different in spirit and intention that one might even label them anti-Pop. His move from painting to sculpture, through which he found himself immediately in the vanguard of Minimalism, took an even more surprising turn in the early 1970s when he decided to take the human body as a subject, first in a series of bronzes (modelled in clay) inspired by his Russian wife, Galina, and then with portrait heads in the same medium. During this period he comprehensively reinvented himself as a sculptor straddling realism and a streamlined language rooted in early 20th-century modernism. Through these works he developed a radical change of direction through which he found an entirely new audience, while at the same time knowingly sidelining himself from

the Pop Art movement he had helped to create. The prominent inclusion of Laing’s early paintings in major museum surveys of Pop Art in Lisbon (1997), Houston (2001), Modena (2004) and Bilbao (2005) may well have encouraged him to re-immerse himself in that language for the post-Pop paintings that marked such a rejuvenating episode in the decade preceding his death in November 2011. It was, however, his fury at the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces in 2003, and particularly the atrocities committed by the American military at Abu Ghraib, that propelled him to make the series of ‘War Paintings’ that serve as his final testament. Though couched in the language of his own early Pop paintings, references to the early work of Lichtenstein and even to earlier icons of American art (such as Grant Wood’s American Gothic of 1930) here take on a post-modern irony. In these caustic but disarmingly pretty pictures, Laing reiterated

the disillusionment he had felt as early as 1966 towards the apparent innocence and frivolity of Pop, which had led him first to adopt an abstract sculptural language and then to the stylisations of the human form that obsessed him for the next two decades. This time he was not just turning his back on a style that had served him well, but railing at the world it represented. His command of the very methods and formal strategies that had made his early Pop paintings so beguiling here take a much darker turn, as they do, too, in the celebrity portraits of the great Amy Winehouse, deadlocked in a fierce embrace and vampiric kiss with the husband whose drug habits and sexual infidelities helped speed her self-destructive impulses. In these works of his last years, Laing turned himself deliberately into a wolf in sheep’s clothing, re-energising the pictorial forms of his youthful innocence with the knowledge and despair of a lifetime’s experience.

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GERALD LAING REMEMBERED

Gerald Laing first walked into The Fine Art Society nearly twenty years ago, slim, athletic and confident. He immediately struck up a conversation with Andrew Patrick, lounging on his camel bench at the bottom of the stairs on the ground floor. In due course I was introduced to him, and that afternoon our first exhibition of Gerald Laing’s work was decided. I think the artist’s home in Kinkell Castle in the far north of Scotland, which he described with great pride, provided common ground with Andrew, a native of Dundee. The show, which opened just over twenty-five years ago in March 1999, consisted of 72 sculptures, in bronze, plaster, etched glass, and his famous painting of Brigitte Bardot, on loan. It was a retrospective of Gerald’s sculpture, mounted at a time when he was busy with commissions, for the City of London, for Twickenham, for Lords, for Sir Paul Getty and for the city of Edinburgh. Gerald’s enthusiasm and drive combined with his intelligence and clarity of thought to make him a natural recipient of commissions to make public sculpture. He could grasp quickly what was required and the technical challenges which might arise. Having set up his own foundry at Kinkell, he was practical as well as imaginative. He was meticulous in his efforts to convey the precise movement of a cricketer or rugby players and described the process with passion. He would visit the gallery regularly and over a decade we mounted three further exhibitions, and plans for a fourth were well advanced when he died in 2011. So it is fitting that we should now stage the first retrospective exhibition of his work as a painter, sculptor and printmaker, spanning half a century.

Gerald liked to talk about art, and he was knowledgeable on art history. He was also attuned to politics and social issues, and his arrival in the gallery guaranteed a serious discussion on any of a number of topics which were on his mind. He followed American politics closely, and lived in New York during the 1960s, so his views were born of experience. Lincoln Convertible, painted in 1964 after the assassination of President Kennedy, is a strange and powerful reminder of the event. The Iraq War troubled him deeply and his natural scepticism, the experience gained as a serving soldier before he went to art school, and his position as an artist, led him to express his anger in paint. Always eager to find someone with whom to sharpen his arguments, he was in some ways conservative and in others radical. So he could convince the senior management at the rfu and the mcc of his suitability for a commission while holding his own in a political discussion in which he might hold profoundly anti-establishment views. This was not in Gerald’s character a contradiction: it was the accumulation of experiences which made him such a keen observer of his times. Gordon Cooke

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E A R LY P O P W O R K S

Though Laing came to art a little late, after a shortlived military career, he was the same age as the group of Pop artists who had emerged from the Royal College of Art. These included the already celebrated David Hockney and the American R.B. Kitaj, as well as Allen Jones, Derek Boshier, Patrick Caulfield and Peter Phillips, who later collaborated with Laing in 1966. His early work, produced whilst he was a student at St Martin’s School of Art, connects him directly to the Pop Art movement. In 1963 he first visited New York, assisting for a short time in Robert Indiana’s studio and building contacts with other (great) American Pop artists including Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist. He moved to New York permanently in 1964 at the suggestion of art dealer Richard Feigen, who held Laing’s first solo show that year and who continued to exhibit his work throughout the 1960s. In many ways Laing’s early works were more closely aligned with the American rather than British Pop movement. His pop works were boisterous, bold and fun. The imagery reflected the interests of an archetypal young, heterosexual man: beautiful film stars, including Brigitte Bardot and Anna Karina, scantily clad young women, macho heroes: drag-racers, skydivers and astronauts. In his treatment of these motifs Laing emphasised rather than obscured the sources that inspired him – printed material such as magazines, newspapers, catalogues, and posters, as well as television and film. Laing replicated the composition of small dots that distanced mass-produced imagery from reality, at about the same time as Roy Lichtenstein did so in America. Laing’s enthusiastic engagement with the contemporary media, suggests as Marco Livingstone wrote ‘a dynamic, youthful optimism that perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere of the early 1960s.’

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1 Cléo from 5 to 7, 1962

2 Untitled (Fan Shaped Canvas), 1962

Oil on canvas 48 x 25 in (22 x 64 cm) Exhibitions: London, St Martin’s School of Art, Paintings from Photographs / Photographs from Paintings, 1963; When Britain Went Pop! British Pop Art: The Early Years, Christie’s, King Street, London, 2013 Literature: David Mellor, The Sixties Art Scene in London, 1993, pp.113–114 and 139–141; Marco Livingstone & Amanda Lo Iacono, When Britain Went Pop – British Pop Art: The Early Years, 2013, p.7

Oil on shaped canvas 20 x 35 in (51 x 89 cm)

This painting was based on a poster advertising Agnes Varda’s film Cleo from 5 to 7, staring the French actress Corinne Marchand. ‘Very fine grained dots – the smallest I ever attempted and a conscious effort to reach that extreme.’ gl, 1966

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3 Study for ‘Brigitte Bardot’, 1963 Pen on tracing paper, signed Gerald Laing, lower left, and dated, lower right 5¼ x 5¼ in (13.2 x 13.2 cm)

This tracing was Laing’s first study for his now iconic image of French actress and model, Brigitte Bardot. The source for the tracing was taken from a poster requesting submissions for the 1963 annual Young Contemporaries Exhibition. Laing audaciously re-appropriated the image as his entry to the exhibition. It was accepted. With opportunistic cheek Laing had guaranteed the success of the painting as the poster afterward acted as its advertisement, whilst making a comment on the blurred boundaries between art and advertising. By capitalising on the enchanting combination of Bardot’s beauty and the abstract nature of the bold geometric shape imposed over it, Laing created one of the most memorable images of early Pop art. The painting’s renown was great before it had even been completed. The actor Roddy Maude-Roxby visited Laing at St Martin’s having heard about it and purchased it immediately for £40. It stayed in his collection until 2014 when it was sold at Christie’s for a record sum of £902,500.

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4 Preparatory collage for ‘Brigitte Bardot’ screenprint, circa 1968 Mixed media collage on paper, inscribed by the artist in pencil Preparatory collage for Brigitte Bardot screenprint, verso Diameter 12 in (30.5 cm)

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5 Brigitte Bardot, 1968 Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled and dated, lower left; edition of 200, published by the artist with his blind stamp 21 x 20½ in (53 x 52 cm); sheet 23 x 35 in (58.8 x 89 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.80–81, no.22

6 Anna Karina, 1963 Oil on canvas 144 x 84 in (366 x 213 cm), nine panels Exhibitions: London, St Martin’s School of Art, Paintings from Photographs / Photographs from Paintings, 1963; London, ica, Source & Stimulus – Space, Speed & Sex, 1964 Literature: David Mellor, The Sixties Art Scene in London, 1993, p.54, 97, 113–114, 139–141, 157; David Brauer, Jim Edwards, Christopher Finch, Walter Hopps,Pop Art: U.S./U.K. Connections, 1956–1966, 2001, pp.29, 33, 37, 40, 64, 72, 73, 82, 83, 128, 162, 163, 182, 190, 191, 239–245, 247; Marco Livingstone & Walter Guadagnini, Pop Art uk: British Pop Art 1956–1972, 2004; Marco Livingstone, British Pop, 2005, pp.220–230 and 343–5; Marco Livingstone, Pop Art: A Continuing History, 1990, pp.176–177, pl. 253

The painting depicts the wife and muse of JeanLuc Goddard, Anna Karina. A 3cm high advertisement from a London newspaper for Goddard’s film Vivre Sa Vie provided the inspiration for this monumental work. Laing explained in 2004 that he had ‘wanted to monumentalise and immortalise a fragile and ephemeral newspaper image of a film and an actress which I felt captured an urban mythology of the times.’ ‘In the strictest sense, my paintings of this period, which include Anna Karina, are paintings of photographs rather than paintings of reality.’ gl, 2004

7 Anna Karina, 2004 Screenprint, printed on white wove paper by Editions Domberger, Stuttgart; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated 1963 – 2004, and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 100 38¼ x 20½ in (97.2 x 52 cm), sheet 39¼ x 26 in (99.8 x 65.8 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.142–43, no.47

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8 Lincoln Convertible, 1963–64 Oil on canvas 73 x 111 in (185 x 282 cm) irregular Exhibitions: London, St Martin’s School of Art, 1964; London, Whitechapel Gallery, Young Contemporaries, 1964; Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes, British Pop, 2005–2006; Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, Pop Art! 1956–1968, 2007; London, Christie’s, When Britain Went Pop! British Pop Art: The Early Years, 2013 Literature: Julia Bingham, Pop Art Book, 2007, pp.29, 30, 110–112, 174; Marco Livingstone & Walter Guadagnini, Pop Art uk: British Pop Art 1956–1972, 2004; Marco Livingstone, British Pop, 2005, p.220–230 and p.343–5; Walter Guadagnini, Pop Art 1956–1968, 2007

On 22 November 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The President was fatally shot whilst travelling with his wife Jacqueline, the Texan Governor John Connally, and his wife Nellie. The now famous home video, taken by Abraham Zapruder, was quickly disseminated by the media worldwide. The use of this footage marked a defining moment in television history and provided crucial evidence for the police. The source of the painting is two sequential frames of the footage published in Life Magazine. The straight line along the base of the car divides the content of each frame. The lower half represents the earlier frame, indicated by the position of the flag. The legs of the Secret Service men running toward the car are visible in the lower half of the painting, but the second frame with the car

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cuts through them, we know already it is too late. Reacting to the news almost immediately, Laing was one of the first artists to have responded and did so very directly. New York gallerist Richard Feigen rejected the picture from the exhibition he held of Laing’s work in 1964, on the basis that it was too raw. ‘That November the shiny image of America cracked from side to side … when the president of the richest and most powerful country in the world proved to be vulnerable to the assassin’s bullet, it came as a terrible and fundamental shock, which forced us all to adopt more realistic attitudes towards the world about us. It drove from us our comfortable and wilful naiveté. Henceforward we became less easy to please and to convince, and much harder to placate. This murder fatally eroded the power of authority, and opened the door to chaos.’ gl

9 Lincoln Convertible, 2007 Screenprint in colour, printed on 400gsm Velin Arches Blanc archival paper by Artizan Editions; signed in pencil; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 60 Sheet 43 x 59 inches (110 x 150 cm) irregular

10 Fall, 1964

11 Collapse, 1964

Oil on shaped canvas 32 x 21 in (81 x 53 cm) Provenance: Private Collection, 1965; Collection of John and Kimiko Powers; Collection of Non-Profit Organisation; Private Collection, 2011 Exhibitions: New York, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1964; Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, Gerald Laing: Paintings, Drawings, Constructions, Prints, 1965; Los Angeles, Feigen Palmer Gallery, 1965

Oil on shaped canvas 39 x 28 in (99 x 71 cm) in four panels Exhibitions: London, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Gerald Laing Prints, 1964; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;By shaping the canvases I was able to accentuate their objecthood. By placing, say, a parallelogram on top of a rectangle, I could imply a third dimension for the painting, as though it was folded and protruded into the room.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; gl

12 First Skydiver, 1968 Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 75 29¼ x 21¼ in (74.2 x 54 cm); sheet 35 x 23 in (89 x 58.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.54–55, no.11

13 Second Skydiver, 1968 Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 75 29¼ x 21¼ in (74.2 x 54 cm); sheet 35 x 23 in (89 x 58.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.56–57, no.12

14 Third Skydiver, 1968 Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 75 29½ x 21½ in (75 x 54.5 cm); sheet 35 x 23 in (89 x 58.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.58–59, no.13

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15 Beachwear, 1964 Oil on canvas 96 x 48 in (244 x 122 cm) Provenance: Private Collection, 1964 Exhibitions: New York, Richard L. Feigen & Co., First Jump Course (One Man Show), 1964 Literature: Van Deren Coke, The Painter and the Photograph: From Delacroix to Warhol, 1964, pp.139–141

‘The sources were magazine photographs; not hardcore or even girlie mags, but ‘happy days’ images. The iconography of attraction is essentially bourgeois. The perfection is unworldly, unreal. The references are as much to the smooth fiberglass shells of a Formula One car as they are to human bodies; the bands of colour on the swimsuits are kin to the racing stripes on a Lotus. The self-absorption of the subjects reinforce their inaccessible and mysterious nature in the same way that the working of a complex and beautiful piece of technology might remain beyond comprehension and yet at the same time be convincing.’ gl, 2006

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16 Tracy (Baby Baby Wild Things), 1968 Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 200 30¾ x 18 in (78 x 46 cm); sheet 35 x 23 in (89 x 58.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, p.90–91, no.25

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17 Sandra (Baby Baby Wild Things), 1968

18 Starlet (Baby Baby Wild Things), 1968

19 Francine (Baby Baby Wild Things), 1968

20 Stacy (Baby Baby Wild Things), 1968

Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 200 30¾ x 18 in (78 x 46 cm); sheet 35 x 23 in (89 x 58.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, p.92–93, no.26

Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; signed in pencil, lower right, titled, dated and numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp in an edition of 200 30¾ x 18 in (78 x 46 cm); sheet 35 x 23 in (89 x 58.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, p.86–87, no.23

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21 Design for Gerald Laing at ica Source and Stimulus / Space Speed Sex, 1964

22 Design for poster Gerald Laing at Richard Feigen Gallery, 1964

Mixed media collage on paper, with artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blindstamp upper right, recto inscribed Art work for gift (bubblegum) given out at Audio visual show at ica 1964 12 x 9 in (30.4 x 22.7 cm)

Mixed media collage on paper 12 x 9 in (30.4 x 22.7 cm)

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23 Wheel and Smoke, 1964

24 Skydiver (1), 1964

Ink and acrylic paint on card 12¼ x 16¼ in (31.3 x 41.5 cm)

Stencil, acrylic and spray paint on paper 12¼ x 10½ in (31.3 x 26.5 cm)

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25 Skydiver (2), 1964 Stencil, acrylic and spray paint on paper 10½ x 12¾ in (26.6 x 32.3 cm)

26 Skydiver (yellow), 1965 Stencil, spray paint, ink, pencil and watercolour on paper 14 x 9 in (35.8 x 22.8 cm)

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27 aad, 1968

28 ct Strokers, 1968

Screenprint in colour, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; titled, signed and dated in pencil lower right; published by the artist with his blind stamp, in an edition of 150 19½ x 30¼ in (50 x 76.9 cm); sheet 23 x 35 in (58.5 x 89 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.70–71, no.18

Screenprint in colour on smooth white paper by the artist, signed in pencil, and titled and dated lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp in an edition of 150 17 x 29 in (43 x 74.2 cm); sheet 23 x 35 in (58.5 x 89 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.72–73, no.19

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29 Acceleration, 1970 Oil on canvas 66 x 50 in (168 x 127 cm) Exhibitions: Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971

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30 The Rosarita Hotel, 1972 Oil on canvas 77 x 82Âź in (195.5 x 209 cm)

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ABSTRACT SCULPTURE

Despite his early success and easy integration into both the British and American Pop Art scenes, Laing quickly fell out of love with the Pop genre. He was troubled by the paradox that the movement embraced the capitalist order it purported to critique. Disillusioned, he made a fundamental departure into sculpture, firstly producing abstract minimalist structures and later, after returning to Britain, figurative bronzes. In his Pop work Laing had already been experimenting with inventively shaped canvases, with rather eccentric forms, as in Fall (cat.no.10) and Collapse (cat.no.11). In using this device Laing was treading the line between abstraction and figuration, aligning himself with abstract painters such as Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella. His abstract sculpture neatly followed on, developing the idea of the painting as object in an environment by moving away from figurative content. Laing abandoned the use of canvases, which were cumbersome as the complexity of their shape increased, in favour of metal, which was worked and finished largely using techniques derived from custom car manufacture. ‘They still contain figurative references, but these are merely points of departure for idealised abstract works which still display a strong technological optimism.’ gl, 1983

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32 Starry Night, 1965 Liquitex on plastic and blue glitter plexiglass 19½ x 7 x 1½ in (50 x 18 x 4 cm) Exhibitions: Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1965; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971

31 Small Glitter Gyron, 1965 Liquitex on plastic and gold glitter plexiglass 16¾ x 10 x 1½ in (43 x 25 x 4 cm) Exhibitions: Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1965; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971

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33 Slow Stab, 1965

34 Loop (Hinged), 1965

Liquitex on aluminium and chrome on steel 113 x 17 in (287 x 43 cm) Exhibitions: Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1965

Metalflake and acrylic on aluminium, polished stainless steel 79 x 41 x 21 in (201 x 104 x 53 cm)

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35 Little Red Loop, 1965

37 Small Pink, 1967

Stove enamel on aluminium and chrome on brass Edition of 15 9½ x 6 x 3 in (24 x 15 x 8 cm) Exhibitions: Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1965; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971

Aluminium with pink lacquer attached to chrome-covered brass support; mounted on black marble base; scratch signed and numbered on base; title, date and place inscribed on base; made by the artist in an edition of 22 10½ x 7 x 3 in (27 x 18 x 8 cm) Exhibitions: Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971 Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.172–73, no.57

36 Indenty, 1966 Acrylic on aluminium, chrome on brass, mounted on a black marble base; scratch signed and numbered on base; title, date and place inscribed on base; made by the artist in an edition of 25 8 x 20 x 4 in (20 x 51 x 10 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.166–67, no.54

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38 Little White Tunnels, 1967

39 Red Axes, 1967

Lacquered aluminium and chromed brass in formica-veneered ply boxes 9 x 12 in (23 x 30 cm) Exhibitions: Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1968

Lacquered aluminium and chromed brass 49 x 68 in (124 x 173 cm) Exhibitions: Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, 1968

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40 Small Arc, 1968

41 Yellow Trace, 1968

Aluminium with yellow lacquer attached to chrome supports, mounted on black marble base; signed and numbered in black marker on base; titled and inscribed on base; made by the artist in two editions of 10 (numbered in Roman or Arabic numerals) 13¼ x 8¾ x 2 in (34 x 12.2 x 5.1 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.178, no.60

Aluminium with yellow and blue lacquer attached to chrome-covered brass wedge, mounted on black marble base; signed and numbered on base; title, date and place inscribed on base; made by the artist in an edition of 10 24½ x 10 x 3½ in (62 x 25 x 9 cm) Exhibitions: Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971: Gerald Laing, 1971 Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.180–81, no.61

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42 Grey Vermont, 1968 Aluminium with grey and black lacquer, chrome-covered brass, mounted on black marble base 33.5 x 10 x 88½ in (85 x 25 x 225 cm)

43 Invisible Man, 1976 Transparent Plexiglas attached to chrome-covered brass, mounted on black marble base; signed and numbered in blue ink on base; title, date and place inscribed on base; made by the artist in an edition of 25 11¼ x 4 in (29 x 10 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.186–87, no.64

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44 Compact, 1966 Screenprint in colour with diecut Mylar, signed in pencil, lower right, numbered and dated, lower left; edition of 200 + 50 aps (numbered in Roman numerals); printed by Knickerbocker Machine & Foundry Inc., New York; published by Original Editions, New York 22¼ x 19¾ in (56.8 x 50.5 cm); sheet 24 x 19¾ in (61 x 50.5 cm) Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.32–33, no.2

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45 #9, 1965 Metallic paint, oil and collage, signed and dated, lower right, stamped 9 65, lower right 20 x 17½ in (50.8 x 44.5 cm)

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46 Two Tunnels, 1968

47 Glide, 1968

Screenprint in colour with diecut Mylar, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; titled, dated and signed in pencil, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 75 + 10 aps 23 x 29 in (58.5 x 73.5 cm) Source of text: Short Story, Galina Galikova Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.106–7, no.31

Screenprint in colour with diecut Mylar, printed on smooth white paper by the artist; titled, dated and signed in pencil, lower right, numbered, lower left; published by the artist, with his blindstamp, in an edition of 75 + 10 aps 23 x 29 in (58.5 x 73.5 cm) Source of text: Aeronauticss Manual, 1934 Literature: Rupert Halliwell & Lyndsey Ingram, Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2006, pp.108–9, no.32

SCULPTURE IN THE LANDSCAPE

In 1969 Laing left New York with his second wife, Galina Golikova, and moved to Kinkell Castle, Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands. The dramatic change of environment had a radical impact on his work. From 1969 to 1973 Laing focused on large outdoor works that reflected new expansiveness and volume of the landscape he inhabited. Though the larger works are too large to be included here, Laingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smaller versions still display the capacity for monumentality and his shift in interest away from obsessive finish in favour of solidity and strength. In the following examples Laing repeatedly re-imagines the power-symbol of the pyramid.

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48 Small Pyramid, 1973

50 Bronze Pyramid, 1971

Bronze·Edition of 50 11 x 13¼ x 6¾ in (28.5 x 34 x 17 cm)

Bronze, in two sections·Edition of 10 43 x 42 x 21 in (109 x 107 x 53 cm)

49 Anthropomorphic Pyramid, 1973 Bronze·Edition of 50 8¾ x 15¾ x 7¼ in (22 x 40.3 x 18.5 cm) Later cast

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52 20th Century Monument (Bronze Version), 1973 Bronze and stainless steel·Edition of 10 11 x 20 x 9 in (28 x 51 x 23 cm) Exhibitions: Edinburgh, Bourne Fine Art Gallery, Gerald Laing: From 1963 to the Present, 2004

51 Pyramid Folly in Garden, 1973 Acrylic on paper 16½ x 20½ in (41.9 x 52.1 cm)

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F I G U R AT I V E S C U L P T U R E

In 1973 Laing embarked on the first piece in what was to be a long series of variations on the head and body of his wife Galina. These were unequivocally figurative and reminiscent of the mannerist forms of Modernism. His initial aim was the representation of the intricate arrangement of mass and voids that made up the body and space around it. The works in the series becme increasingly naturalistic and, in Conception and An American Girl, retain only a few stylized hints of abstraction. As Laing’s work became progressively classical he turned more to portraiture and public sculpture. He also learned from the master craftsman George Mancini, of the historic Morris Singer Foundry, to cast bronze, and in 1978 set up his own bronze foundry at Kinkell. Later, in 1994, one of his sons, Farquhar, set up the Black Isle Bronze Foundry in nearby Nairn.

53 Galina i, 1973 Bronze·Edition of 10 18¾ x 14 x 10½ in (48 x 36 x 27 cm) Exhibitions: New York, Max Hutchinson Gallery, 1976; Chicago, Zolla Lieberman Gallery, 1976; Houston, Max Hutchinson Gallery, 1979 Later cast

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55 Galina v, 1976 Bronze·Edition of 10 22 x 16 x 9 in (56 x 41 x 23 cm) Later cast

54 Galina ii, 1973 Bronze·Edition of 10 11¾ x 8 x 9 in (30 x 20 x 23 cm) Exhibitions: New York, Max Hutchinson Gallery, 1976 Later cast

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56 Galina vi, 1976

57 Galina viii, 1976

Bronze·Edition of 10 20½ x 16½ x 7 in (52 x 42 x 18 cm) Exhibitions: New York, Max Hutchinson Gallery, 1976

Bronze·Edition of 1st cast 4; edition of 2nd cast 10 19 x 15 x 13 in (48 x 38 x 33 cm)

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58 Conception, 1977

59 An American Girl, 1977

Bronze·Edition of 10 32 x 19 x 26 in (81 x 48 x 66 cm) Exhibitions: New York, Max Hutchinson Gallery, Gerald Laing – Bronze Sculpture, 1979; Miami, Bacardi Art Gallery, Gerald Laing – Sculpture, 1982; Aspen, Joanne Lyon Gallery, Gerald Laing, 1983

Bronze·Edition of 10 + 2 ap 25½ x 26 x 31 in (65 x 66 x 79 cm) Exhibitions: New York, Max Hutchinson Gallery, Gerald Laing – Bronze Sculpture, 1979; Miami, Bacardi Art Gallery, Gerald Laing – Sculpture, 1982

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‘An American Girl can be seen as the culmination of the Galina Series of sculpture in which I worked through various formal and abstract figurations, absorbing all sorts of influences, in my search for a viable method of depicting the human figure: a figurative language.’ gl

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60 Flora, 1982

61 Seated Woman I, 1981

Bronze·Edition of 10 23½ x 53 x 27 in (60 x 135 x 69 cm)

Bronze·Edition of 10 22 x 16 x 14 in (56 x 41 x 36 cm) Exhibitions: Miami, Bacardi Art Gallery, Gerald Laing – Sculpture, 1982

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62 Portrait of Luciano Pavarotti, 1993 Bronze·Edition of 10 32 x 12½ x 12½ in (81 x 32 x 32 cm)

Laing was commissioned to make this portrait bust for the opera singer, Luciano Pavarotti, who owned the first cast. He travelled to Modena in February 1993 for the sittings, taking enough clay for a one and a half times life-size sculpture as ‘Pavarotti was himself at least one and a half times life-size.’ ‘He wore quite heavy make-up, especially on his eyebrows, and the bald patch on the back of his head was disguised with thick black greasepaint. Pavarotti’s natural environment was not everyday life, but the dramatic dreamland of the stage.’ gl, 2007

63 Portrait of Andy Warhol, 1990 Bronze·Edition of 6 19¼ x 15¼ x 12 in (49 x 39 x 31 cm) Later cast

The original plaster cast of this bronze was commissioned by the Warhol Foundation as an official portrait for their offices. The Foundation specified a Neoclassical style for the portrait, preferring the white of the plaster to this bronze version. Laing and Warhol first met in New York in 1963 and they became friends whilst he was living and working there (throughout the 1960s). ‘I treated the very obvious wigs which he affected in his later years in a strictly formal manner in order to point up the difference between them and his real wispy hair which is just visible protruding near his ear in the photograph.’ gl, 2002

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late paintings

In 2004 Laing returned fully to painting after a 40-year hiatus. This time around he painted works that were unnequivocally political and social critiques. As a former army officer Laing was particularly disturbed by the atrocities committed by army personnel and cia staff against prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, which came to light in late 2003. Laing’s outrage at the Iraq War led him to reclaim his visual language of the 1960s for the purpose of protest in a series of ‘war paintings’. In several of these works the motifs of American Pop Art are brutally inverted to emphasise the cruelty and unjust nature of the war. Later, he paraphrased his Pop work with a lighter purpose in his paintings of celebrities including Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse. Laing’s paintings of Beckham and Moss are straightforward comments on celebrity culture and the sexualisation of women in the media; he presents them as symbols rather than individuals. His numerous representations of Winehouse, already sentenced by the media as on course for self-destruction, were the fruits of a more personal obsession. ‘My work is concerned with the myth, and portrays her as she appeared to us, the public, via the media,’ Laing explained. ‘Now that the drama has ended, and all is quiet, I hope it will be seen as a tribute from one artist to another.’

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64 Awe Shucks, 2004 Oil on canvas·48 x 70 in (122 x 178 cm)

‘In the centre, Bush swaggers over the abyss down a red carpet with gold classical detail to tell America about the possibility of war. I have pixelled out his face to protect his identity; also his genital area in case he has by accident left his fly unzipped.’ gl

65 The New American Tourist, 2005 Oil on canvas 36 x 32 in (91 x 81 cm)

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66 Catechism, 2005 Oil on canvas 120 x 60 in (305 x 152 cm)

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;In the bottom third of the canvas the grieving women of Beslan bury their children. The graves are marked by white wooden posts. Further up the canvas the figures dissolve into pixels, which introduce their own officious, arbitrary and busy version of reality. The white posts are echoed by the reflections in the river of violent explosions as the glowing city of Bagdad is bombed. Above the people float the hooded torture victims from Abu Ghraib, in a manner suggestive of the Crucifixion. They are standing on Andy Warhol Brillo Box sculptures, which substitute banality for intellectual rigour.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; gl

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67 Trouble in the Banlieu, 2010 Oil on canvas 36 x 48 in (91 x 122 cm)

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68 Pass, 2007

69 Reprise of Lotus I (1965), 2006

Oil on canvas 19Â˝ x 36 in (50 x 91.5 cm)

Oil on canvas 45 x 56 in (114 x 142 cm)

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70 Variation on theme of Kate Moss, 2009 Watercolour on paper 19½ x 12 in (50.2 x 30.5 cm)

71 km (Kate Moss), 2007 Screenprint in 7 colours, on 400gsm Velin Arches Blanc; signed and dated in pencil, lower left, numbered, lower right; printed by Artizan in an edition of 90 20¾ x 32½ in (52 x 83 cm); sheet 25¾ x 38¾ in (65.5 x 98.5 cm)

72 Study for ‘Kate Moss’, 2007 Oil on canvas 32 x 20 in (81 x 51 cm) Exhibitions: London, ocontemporary Gallery, New Paintings for Modern Times, 2008

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73 vb ii – Victoria Beckham, 2007 Screenprint in 8 colours with gold foil, on 400gsm Velin Arches Blanc; signed and dated in pencil, lower left, numbered, lower right; printed by Artizan in an edition of 90 17¾ x 22 in (45 x 56 cm); sheet 22¾ x 28¼ in (58 x 72 cm)

74 Victoria Beckham, 2007 Oil on canvas·22 x 18 in (56 x 45.5 cm)

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77 The Kiss, 2007

75 Domestic Perspective, 2008

Screenprint in 6 colours with hand-applied gold leaf, printed on 400gsm Velin Arches Blanc; signed, dated and numbered in pencil, lower left; published by the artist and ocontemporary 31¾ x 37½ in (81 x 95 cm); sheet 37 x 43¾ in (94 x 111 cm)

Screenprint in 20 colours, on 400gsm Velin Arches Blanc, signed in pencil Sheet 27 x 50 in (69 x 127 cm)

76 Domestic Perspective, 2008 Oil on canvas 68½ x 33 in (174 x 84 cm) Exhibitions: London, ocontemporary Gallery, New Paintings for Modern Times, 2008; London, Thomas Gibson Fine Art, Amy Winehouse, 2011

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Published by The Fine Art Society for the exhibition Gerald Laing 1936–2011: A Retrospective, held at 148 New Bond Street, London w1, from 19 September to 13 October 2016. isbn 978 1 907052 70 5 Catalogue © The Fine Art Society Images © The Estate of Gerald Laing Text © the authors 2016 All rights reserved Designed and typeset in Sweets Sans by Dalrymple Printed in Belgium by Albe De Coker Photography cat. no. 3-4, 11, 15, 21, 22, 23-26, 33, 36, 45, 51, 55-57, 60, 68, 70-72, 74 by Justin Piperger Photography; cat. no. 63 courtesy of The Fine Art Society; all other images courtesy of The Estate of Gerald Laing

The Fine Art Society 148 ne w bond st r e e t ·lo n do n w1s 2j t + 44 (0)20 7629 5116 · rowena@thefineartsociety.com www.thefineartsociety.com

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