LICHTENSTEIN, Gallery of Modern Art EDINBUGH

Artists widows can have a tough time. My friend Magda Salvesen, herself the widow of American expressionist Jon Schueler, wrote a book about women left to deal with famous painters' archives. 

Some widows accept the job. Others hate it. In Scotland Carol (Steven) Campbell and Maggy (Tim) Stead have tackled the problem with determination and expertise. 

Dorothy Lichtenstein is also an example 
par excellence. She is present whenever, whatever. The first time I met her was in New York subway at 42nd St /Times Square when Lichtenstein's vibrant 53 ft mammoth mural was installed. It was 2002. She told me then, "Roy loved New York & rode the subway from the time he was a boy." Last week she was in Edinburgh, her first visit, for the unveiling of 16 large scale prints from the 1990s.

Still beautiful, unfailingly polite she endures posing for press photos & interviews with patience and tact. 

They met in 1964 when she was working in an art gallery in New York round the corner from his studio. "We had asked him and Andy Warhol if they would put an image on a shopping bag for us. Roy was just happy to be asked.  He was a shy person."  For her it was love at first sight. They married in 1968. He died in 1997 age 74. 

The Edinburgh show consists of 3 Artists Rooms, filling the GMA ground floor. The 16 prints from the 1990s are huge & impressive, most riffing off the idea of reflection, glass and mirrors. GMA is lucky in its possession of his famous comic book Car oil painting 1963 which used comic books as its source. The Tate has also loaned a dramatic steel relief from 1965, Wall Explosion.

 Car 1963

Lichtenstein, a pioneer of Pop Art, is best known for his use of the immediately
recognisable commercial Benday dots, which brought him fame when he was 40. But another signature is his love of  images as tho seen thro glass, with streaks crossing the surface.

In the 1990s he reprised this use of parallel lines but in a more elaborate, sophisticated way. He also took to a playful reworking of iconic images by Picasso & Monet. Here a series of 1992 Water Lilies on stainless steel are produced using a hand held tooled drill to make small whirls. Silk screen lines & lily pattern shapes over lap the reflective surface to suggest shimmering water - a highly complex printing process!

In the 1990s Lichtenstein also tackled the nude for the first time. Dorothy says, "Roy once joked that it was a good excuse to contrast undulating & volumetric form with rigid geometry."

There are also several compositions relating to music - he loved jazz - with notes breaking free of the stave to float beyond.

Lichtenstein's blurring of the boundaries between high & low culture which began in the 1960s, never left him. He has had a major influence on future generations of artists and designers worldwide.

This exhibition is courtesy of Anthony d'Offay's ARTIST ROOMS, the Lichtenstein Foundation in NY & the Tate. Since it was launched in 2008 with 1500 works by 38 leading artists, valued at £100 m, there have been more than 130 Artist Rooms exhibitions seen by 31 million visitors. An amazing success story.

THE TWO ROBERTS , Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.  

I am old enough to have been taken as a child to the 1951 FESTIVAL of BRITAIN in London. I remember it well - but whether we saw the exhibition Paintings for 51' where the 2 Roberts showed, I don't know. We did see lots of sculpture (my mother was a sculptor). I also saw Beryl Grey dance - that I remember. 

The 2 Roberts by their teacher Ian Fleming, 1937-8. 

Reading Patrick Elliott's superb catalogue for ROBERT COLQUHOUN & ROBERT MacBRYDE at Edinburgh's Gallery of Modern Art reminded me of this, while the sombre, often murky greeny grey, ochre & brown tones of many pictures here are so familiar that they bring that difficult post-war era flooding back.  

 

The second World War and 1950s post war years were anxious, dark & brooding times, even reflected in dress or curtain fabrics. It was as though the sun had disappeared & even oil paints & fabric dyes were mournful. I remember my mother eventually turning up to fetch me from primary school in a brightly coloured, full-skirted dress. I was astonished & remarked "You look funny" - which was not what she wanted to hear! It was the first time that rationing had allowed skirts to use anything but drab, skimpy material.

This major must-see show celebrates the 2 Roberts centenary. Yet it is a sad story. The pictures are not easy, for they present a tragic vision of humanity; a stark depiction of poverty and deprivation. Colquhoun's grieving, angular, hollow eyed figures are resigned yet noble. 

 MacBryde, known for his still life paintings, does use more colour but together with ominous shadows & black outlines. Cubist in influence, both painters absorbed much from their early European trips, with Colquhoun's broken up figures reminiscent of Jankel Adler and Picasso. 

1947 MacBryde Still Life 

Nevertheless they are pictures which chimed with the times. Soon the 2 Roberts were enjoying a huge London success, holding sell-out shows. Close friends included Freud, Bacon, Minton; Sir Kenneth Clark, (director National Gallery) Sir John Rothenstein (Tate Director) & Sir Colin Anderson were avid supporters. 

Colquhoun specialised in figure painting, MacBryde in still-life, and was often in Colquhoun's shadow. Hard drinking, volatile and uncompromising, their lives were as passionate and compelling as their art.

In 1948 New York's Museum of Modern Art & the Tate acquired paintings.  By 1950 they were among the most famous artists working in Britain. 

While the 1940s took them from obscurity to stardom, in the 1950s they descended into penury and alcoholism, with no permanent home, living on charity from friends. As a gay couple when this was illegal (till 1967 in England; 1980 in Scotland) they had been lucky to fall on their feet in 1941 in London among the bohemian Soho crowd, but that also involved a great deal of drinking too, which became their downfall. 

Elliott's off repeated phrase, "Nothing came of it" is telling. Commissions, exhibitions, requests for illustrations, pictures, theatre designs, nothing came of them. What a waste of huge talent- but then drink is a very Scottish problem. 

Moreover as abstraction and New York expressionist exuberance (for the US had not endured a war) became the dominant force, these tough, gritty, subdued "ultra-modern" images were no longer wanted. 

Both artists hailed from Ayrshire and met at Glasgow School of Art in 1933 where their superb draughtsmanship soon brought them travelling scholarships to Paris where in 1939, they inevitably saw Picasso's work before going on to Rome reporting "it was full of soldiers." 

Colquhoun Self Portrait 1940

During the war Colquhoun, handsome, charismatic, but melancholy by nature, drove an ambulance which may have influenced his vision of tense, emaciated, suffering mankind. Having experienced the Depression too, his whole approach to life was less upbeat than MacBryde's. Texture was important to both, animals often appear in Colquhoun's work, which frequently has an autobiographical slant. His pairs of figures, even when female, often resemble the 2 of them. 

MacBryde 1948 Still Life. 

Two women sewing 1953 by MacBryde for Coronation Year exh at the Tate. 

The catalogue ends with a wonderful essay by Davy Brown on Colquhoun's monotypes. Any printmaker will be enthralled by this informed, fascinating look at these powerful graphic works. 

The Gardener, 1948, monotype by Colquhoun

The TWO ROBERTS runs till May 24th.

TIM STEAD & J D FERGUSSON at PERTH Museum & Art Gallery 

Tim Stead MBE was passionate about wood. Chestnut, elm, sycamore, ash, oak, chestnut, beech. These made up his palette, his tones, his textures. He inspired many to look at wood with fresh eyes & long before 'green' was a popular ethos, he set about changing attitudes to the environment. 

Many Glaswegians got to know his work thro Cafe Gandolfi  where his eccentric but memorable - & comfortable- furniture is still a feature. He went on to make an elaborate chair for the Pope's visit in 1982 + an entire chapel for Aberdeen's St Nicholas church. 

Tim died in 2000 aged 48. This major retrospective exhibition is touring before his work passes to a Trust. I was so glad to see it! The work spans 27 years from early student pieces (Nottingham + Glasgow Art School) via boxes & gifts he made for his wife, wall panels with copper inlay & towers from burr oak. An impressive circle of chairs - Stata, Skeletal & Gnasher are my favourites - greets u at the entrance together with a panel of Tim's words which he wrote aged 19. It is a very moving piece. 

His chairs were always sculptures in disguise. Tactile in the extreme. it's hard not to reach out and touch. Pragamatic and sensible, Tim knew it would be hard to make a living as a sculptor, so put his talents into innovative sculptural furniture. His widow, Maggy said his mantra was that anything he made should be comfortable, useful, practical but visually stimulating.

I wrote about him many times in the Herald from 1982 onwards. Happily you too can now search my 30 year archive via GSA archive  http://www.gsaarchives.net/archon/?p=collections/findingaid&id=482&q or  Link to www.ScottishArtArchive.com

In January 1983 he showed at the Collins Gallery. I wrote, " He has used this grounding (training as a sculptor) in the interplay of solid form with spaces round and in between to great advantage. Each piece of oak, ash, elm seems to come to life again as he carves and shapes it with saw & chisel, developing planes & curves, facets & edges which invite caresses. He encourages this feeling of approachability by lavishing oil & beeswax on to his chairs, tables, shelves & dressers to reveal & enhance the grain & colour of the wood." 

In 1990 his big show at Glasgow's Compass Gallery was called Layers: An Exploration in Wood. We looked at a complex carved piece of pink grained yew. Tim turned it from the horizontal to the vertical. "You could easily put it on a plinth - but I wouldn't want to. I don't like to. Conventional sculpture is off-putting; remote. You're not supposed to touch"
                              

There, as at Perth, there were many wooden pieces to play with, 3D jigsaw puzzles with towers & slots, grooves, secrets.  "Pick it up. Handle it. Feel it. Look. This one opens out and that one lifts up." Multiple segments of excavated wood are here to explore. 
Stead told me "When a tree is sawn thro each slice reads like a book revealing colour & lines from the past which suddenly reflect light after 100 years or more. All of nature inter-relates & within the wood there is landscape, history, sky, water, interlocking forms, & infinite scope for speculation." The show has a nice video too, so u can see this 'object maker' as he called himself, talking for yourself. 

Perth Museum & Art Gallery: 16 Jan - 3 May 2015 Barony Craft Centre, West Kilbride: 23 May - 2 August 2015 Smith Museum & Art Gallery, Stirling: 7 August - 4 October 2015 McLaurin Art Gallery, Ayr: 8 November - Mid-January 2015/16

REACT- REFLECT-RESPOND presents work by 11 artists who have been inspired by the spirit and themes of Stead's work. It is a lovely, graceful show demonstrating the skills and talents of people around today. 

Perth is  home to the FERGUSSON  GALLERY nearby in Marshall Place, but currently Perth Art Gallery also presents FERGUSSON & NATURE. He lived in Glasgow's West End from 1939 till his death in 1961 age 87, while his partner Margaret Morris lived there till 1989, aged 89. 

Their flat overlooked Glasgow's Botanic Gardens so it's not surprising to see the Gardens feature in his oil paintings along with the River Kelvin. I visited Margaret Morris in their flat in the early 1970s. She was lying in bed & was very autocratic. She had summoned me there for tea - ringing me at 7am to arrange it! 

They normally lived between Scotland and the south of France. The exhibition also includes studies of flowers, and landscapes of verdant greens and blues. 

ALASDAIR GRAY, Glasgow Art Gallery & DAVID EUSTACE at Edinburgh's Scottish Gallery

At long last , and none too soon, ALASDAIR GRAY has been given serious consideration and appropriate recognition with a large & glorious retrospective exhibition at Glasgow's Kelvingrove. 

Over 100 works from 1952 to today demonstrate his eagle eye, the strength and simplicity of his line; his superb use of colour & pattern, his dramatic viewpoints. For many Glaswegians it's a trip down memory lane, seeing old friends like Bethsy Gray, Liz Lochhead, Edwin Morgan, Elspeth King captured in their prime. A young Margot MacDonald, Jimmy Reid and his family at home, Tom McGrath in his chaotic Third Eye office looking onto Scott St, Reo Stakis before the Grosvenor Hotel burnt down Xmas/New Year 1977/8, Frank Worsdall and his Tenement book. 

We owe all these wonderful 1977 records of people & places to Elspeth King, who as curator of the People's Palace, took the initiative to invite Gray to be official "City Recorder."  She told me, "He worked as part of the government's Job Creation scheme. It was about 30 quid a week . A pitance. We got all the pictures that were a product of his time." Gray remembers it as "the pleasantest steady job of my life."

They agreed Gray would paint streets about to be demolished; folk in politics and the arts; interiors of work places including the workers. This produced street scenes of Bridgeton where Gray's family had lived; staff at the Daily Record newspaper, The Pewter Pot pub, Teddy Taylor MP drawn in a constituent's home in Castlemilk,  Jack House who was rightly often called Mr Glasgow, and who campaigned against the motorways destroying much of the city's centre. 

Gray quit his Recorder post to become Writer-in-Residence at Glasgow University."I would never have left if the wage had been enough to pay my half of my son's school fees." 

The show is chronological. Gray was drawing and writing by the age of 8, with his father typing out his "stories of magical worlds where I was rich and powerful."  

Nude at Red Table 1954

Gray attended Glasgow Art School for 5 years from 1952-57, and Nude at Red Table 1954 exemplfies Gray's characteristic, spare linear graphic style. He was to draw and paint single nude figures for the rest of his career. He also drew his son Andrew from babyhood onwards, with several delightful and heartfelt studies: on show here. 

  Lamlash Tearoom dates from a summer homework in 1952. The Campsies and Arran were a constant inspiration while a landscape of Brodick Bay seen from Goat Fell dates from 1965. Gray spent his honeymoon on Arran, then as so often, unemployed and strapped for cash.  

"People didn't want my work. It's only recently that people will buy it," he says. 

Bethsy Gray in her kitchen. 1983.

Lamlash Bay 1965

Murals have featured prominently in Gray's career - but that's another story. (Follow the West End Walking Tour and you can find 4 very near Kelvingrove on Byres Rd, and several others not so far away. )

Many know Gray for his novels, notably the award winning Lanark which Gray entirely designed - text, margins, illustrations and cover. He used the faces of many friends and family in these. The book was a huge success and remains a seminal work. Many books followed, and their readers may not have been aware of the strength and depth of Gray's visual art in its many & varied forms, including Hillhead subway murals 2012, Oran Mor's auditorium and - soon to be unveiled, St Mungo. 

For me portraiture is an outstanding feature of this exhibition - which concludes with Now & Then. His portrait of his American granddaughter Alexandra 2008 is as good as anything on show - not bad for Glasgow's resident genius and polymath. For the show celebrates Gray's 80th birthday. Happily he is in fine form & good spirits, able to savour this long overdue acclaim in his hometown.  

 A Gray by D Eustace

DAVID EUSTACE, Scottish Gallery Edinburgh

By happy chance international photographer David Eustace has also captured Gray on camera, a brilliant penetrating shot. Eustace has photographed many famous folk: Paul McCartney, Sophia Loren, Tracy Emin and Eve Arnold, herself a luminary of the camera world. 
 Eve Arnold 1996
Eustace has spent a lot of time in the States - sometimes working on large scale projects with NBC and Tom Brokaw. But his Scottish roots show thro' here with dramatic Highland landscapes of Torridon, Assynt, and Skye, and portraits of art world personalities like Emilio Coia, Robbie Coltrane and the lovely John Byrne.
Emilio Coia 

John Byrne 2011

This is a first for the Scottish Gallery. Established in 1842 when photography was an infant, the gallery has never, till now, exhibited photographs. It's also a first for me as I never write about shows I have not seen. But hospitals and a broken hip have put paid to that, and I am relying on the catalogue. However I do know David's work well having first written about him 20+ years ago.  Moreover last year he took MY portrait in New York - so I have the advantage of seeing him at work behind the camera - a thrilling experience. 
The show runs till February 28th so I may yet manage to see it in the flesh. 

Eustace has just published a monograph via Clearview Books plus he has a photo spread for a mens fashion story in Harrods Magazine. Busy guy!

DOUGLAS GORDON in NEW YORK 

I think it's supposed to be about provoking enough of a memory that people take it away and do their own thing with it. For me, artwork... is something that you should be able to take away—you don't have to be present in front of it, and that's the potency of the artwork when it works.—Douglas Gordon

We all know Douglas Gordon’s Psycho (1993) but I had never seen his PHANTOM (2011) so I was glad to take advantage of his New York showing of it in a small but - location location - key corner space on Park Avenue. Happily this new Gagosian gallery has a big window and Gordon took advantage of this by playing this impressive video 24/7. Passers by no doubt surprised, enthralled, disturbed - or not - by the silent gaze of a tar-blackened eye slowly slowly blinking. 

The eye belongs to singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright who provides the memorable, hauntingly beautiful, accompanying music.  Filmed over a few minutes employing a high-speed Phantom camera, it translates into slow-mo echoing melodramatic performances by stars of the silent screen. On stage in front of the screen, a baby grand piano stands over another piano that has been burnt to ashes—a recurring symbol for Gordon that here might allude to the cyclical nature of life.

Wainwright's requiem-style soundtrack for this installation, is his 2010 album All days are nights. It includes the apt “Who Are You New York?  New Yorkers are notoriously hurried - but also inquiring - so maybe they can slow down here.   

This coincided with Gordon's major new installation “tears become... streams become...” which was on view at the NY Park Avenue Armory from December 2014–January 4, 2015. 

For a review of this see my Herald piece: 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/visual/douglas-gordon-in-new-york-city.114372977