The
Artist’s Studio 26 September – 13 December 2009
First Floor
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Exhibition Entrance
Chinese
Exhibition Continues
Lift
Galleries
6
Resource Area
Introduction
The Artist’s Studio
This exhibition explores the territory of the artist’s studio as a physical space and site for artistic creation, and as a theme which has been reimagined and explored throughout the history of art. The studio, often depicted by artists, has frequently become a place for self-reflection and representation as well as a locus for experimentation and theatre. From early representations to the present day the studio has also functioned as a generator of myth. Concentrating on changing views of the studio in Britain, the exhibition begins in 1640 with the first known depiction by George Jamesone. Work from Renaissance Italy, seventeenth-century Holland and nineteenth-century France is also included to show how the genre was partly shaped by continental influences. As the studio genre has evolved, so too has its documentation by photographers and filmmakers – and its preservation and reconstruction within museums and galleries. The studio continues to be explored and revisited by artists today; and the exhibition includes a number of contemporary responses to this enduring theme.
Room 1
Myths
As well as being a practical space which reflects the artistic practice of the artist, the studio is often perceived as an imaginary or mythical site. From classical characters such as Pygmalion and Apelles and Campaspe, and their associations with divine creation and power, to the idea of the artistic garret and the suffering artist, the studio has become the site for the creation of myth and literary ideas.
Room 2
Self-display
Artists have often portrayed themselves in grand studio settings filled with works of art and evidence of financial and cultural wealth. The first known painting of a studio, from the 1640s, presents George Jamesone in an impressive pose, gesturing towards his collection. He may have been influenced by the famous studio of Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp, which functioned as workroom, academy, gallery and display space for potential clients. Keen to assert their presence within these impressive settings, artists have often positioned themselves in their studios to construct indirect self-portraits. Popular interest in the studio has led to numerous publications and images on the theme. The Victorian studio images by John Ballantyne and the 1960s publication Private View testify to the public’s continuing fascination with the supposedly private space where the artist works.
Room 3
The Studio as Workplace
Depictions of artists and assistants at work in the studio are rare until the age of photography, as if artists were unwilling to reveal the secrets of their working practices. Despite this, a close look at the images throughout the exhibition reveals many technical details of artists’ practice. Treatises on the production of works of art flourished from the sixteenth century onwards. Some of these were primarily practical, such as Dürer’s Instruction on Measurement with Compass and Ruler. Others, such as Lomazzo’s Tract (translated by Richard Haydocke), explored the theoretical basis for the visual arts. Although many artists have embraced new technology, painting equipment has changed little for several centuries. The palette used by Hogarth in the eighteenth century hardly differs from Tom Phillips’ palette today. Such items have been collected for many years, particularly by academies of art. Framed and labelled, their status takes on the form of an artistic relic.
Room 4
The Studio within the Academy
For many years the usual artistic training for an artist was in the studio of an established artist, where he or she would learn practical skills. From late-sixteenth century Italy, the art academy developed as an alternative approach. In Renaissance Italy an artist was taught to draw from classical sculpture and then from the human body. Drawing was seen as the foundation of artistic practice, along with religious and historical literature. Thus during the eighteenth century the Royal Academy of Arts was often depicted with students engaged in studying casts or the nude. Until the late-nineteenth century women were excluded from the academy studio, as it was thought improper for them to draw from the nude model.
Room 4
The Model and the Studio
An important figure in the history of the studio is that of the artist’s model. Whether the model takes on the role of muse to the artist, or is merely a stranger, worked on and exposed to ‘the cold concentration of the painter’s eye at work’, the model/artist dynamic forms an intriguing narrative in the studio genre.
Room 4
Where Worlds Collide: Society and the Studio Before the days of commercial galleries much of the social life of the artist was carried out in the studio. There artists could entertain friends or clients, or engage in close discussion of their work. As such it is a place where two worlds often collide. Depictions of such sociability include the chaotic academy at Burlington House, the studio of the sculptor E.H. Baily (who lectures a group of people much smaller than himself), the elegant painting room of Francis Hayman, and the studio of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who is seen accompanied by different female models. The notion of the studio as a place where convention is discarded is also evident in literature, notably in such works as George du Maurier’s Trilby, one of the most famous accounts of Parisian studio life.
Room 4
The Garret
By the mid-nineteenth century the studio was often being portrayed as an impoverished garret, with the somewhat romanticised figure of the artist foregoing any home comforts in the pursuit of art. The genre was particularly popular in France, influenced by Henri Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème and exemplified by Octave Tassaert’s humble Interior of a Studio. Ironically, the later nineteenth century was a period of prosperity for many artists in Britain, and as a result images of the garret studio become less frequent. To an extent, the portrayal of the artist in his garret is a literary convention, one which often intentionally substantiates the idea of the artist as outsider.
Room 4
The Artist at Work
The depiction of the artist at work in the studio has been a favourite subject for artists since at least the seventeenth century. Some of the most important and symbolically powerful meditations on the nature of art and creativity date from the seventeenth century, notably works by Velรกzquez (Las Meninas) and Vermeer (The Art of Painting), Rembrandt and Adriaen van Ostade. Often these subjects take on the form of a self-portrait, a depiction of a collaborator or close friend, or an imaginary composition. In each case the studio becomes a symbol of the act of creation and of the reflectiveness which underlies this creativity.
Room 4
The Studio Still Life
From the late-eighteenth century, images of the studio often take on a more reflective quality as the studio is depicted for its own sake. The artist is present by implication, with their possessions or equipment left as though recently in use or arranged as if taking on the qualities of an informal still life.
Room 4
An Alternative History: Women and the Studio By the early-eighteenth century it had become fashionable for middle and upper class women to be taught drawing or watercolour painting. This popular pastime was most often carried out in the domestic sphere, along with more typical female handicrafts. Despite the success of a small number of women artists, the more serious pursuits of oil painting and sculpture were still for the most part the territory of men. It was not until the late-nineteenth century that women artists were able to claim an equal status with men. From its opening in 1871 the Slade School of Fine Art in London admitted women as students, an opportunity that was eagerly taken up. Women were granted the right to draw and paint from male and female models, though with strict regulations regarding separate life classes for male and female students.
Room 5
The Studio Shrine
The idea of preserving a studio as a memorial to an artist is a relatively recent one. No house museums dedicated to British eighteenth-century artists such as William Hogarth and Thomas Gainsborough retain any of their original fittings. In 1896 an effort to preserve the Kensington studio of Lord Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, was unsuccessful. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, a handful of artists’ studios have been preserved for viewing as they were left by the artist. These include the Watts Gallery at Compton in Surrey, built and maintained as a shrine to ‘England’s Michelangelo’; Linley Sambourne House in Kensington; Barbara Hepworth’s Trewyn Studio in St Ives, Cornwall; Duncan Grant’s studio at Charleston, Sussex and Henry Moore’s studio and house at Perry Green in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. As well as the preservation of studios in situ, museums and galleries have dedicated permanent displays to studio installations and reconstructions. This room documents two recent examples: Francis Bacon’s studio at Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane and the Paolozzi Studio at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh.
Room 6
Photography and the Studio
Studios have always been a popular subject for photographers and this room illustrates the contrasting approach to this subject in the work of Bruce Bernard, Gautier Deblonde, Jorge Lewinski and Lord Snowdon. As a body of work spanning nearly six decades, each photographer’s work exhibits a strongly personal view of what the studio, and its inhabitants, may mean.
Room 7
Artists on Film
The legacy of artists on film includes footage of Degas, Monet, Matisse and Picasso. Since the Second World War the idea of filming artists, often in their studios, has been a preoccupation for many filmmakers. This selection of post-war films offers an overview of this illuminating material and captures artists working in and beyond their studios.
Rooms 8+9
Beyond the Frame
Today, the studio as a frame of reference can be seen to apply to multiple and diverse spaces. As well as traditional working spaces where light, space and solitude play an important part, artists can be seen to be operating out of offices, on laptops, in libraries, within converted police stations, inside factory buildings, within communities, or on-site in art galleries and public spaces. The physical makeup of the studio can be seen to move alongside the new demands of the artist. As a genre and theme to which to respond, the studio continues to fascinate, challenge and evolve – questioning as it does the fundamental basis of why art is produced and our own relationship to it.
Room 8
The following text relates to the work of Art & Language in Room 8 A plain list of some of the things represented in Index: Studio at 3 Wesley Place On the left wall: Right hand Third of Courbet’s Burial at Ornans expressing states of Mind that are Obsessive and compelling … 1981. Panels from Documenta Index (I), 1972 and Hayward Gallery Index 2 (II), 1972 Poster for Fox 4, 1976; Map to Not Indicate, 1967; Atielier V, 1949 by George Braque (exhibited at ‘Westkunst’, Koln, 1981) In doorway on left wall: Part of IIs Donnent Leur Sang, Donnez Votre Travail, 1977; plan of map for Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in the Style of Jackson Pollock, 1980; part of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in the style of Jackson Pollock, 1980 On guitar case: Manet’s Olympia, 1863, reproduced as a cover for the libretto of an opera, Olympia, 1981–82
Room 8
On table: Reproduction of Courbet’s The Studio of the Painter, 1855 On the floor, far left foreground: Sleeve of Kangaroo? LP by Art & Language and The Red Crayola, 1981: sleeve of Corrected Slogans LP by Art & Language and the Red Crayola, 1976; Sleeve of Rattenmensch/Gewichtwatcher single by Art & Language and The Red Crayola, 1981 Under table left: Xerox Book 1968 by Ian Burn; a copy of The Fox (Number 1), 1975 On the floor behind table left: Alternate Map for Documenta Index, 1972 (with others rolled) On facing wall left: Secret Painting 1967–8; Singing Man, 1975 (text is ‘Scab Shaman’s Rejuvenation’); Axe of American Surrealism from ‘Illustrations for ArtLanguage’, 1977
Room 8
Centre left of facing-wall: Portrait of V.I. Lenin in July 1917 disguised by a wig and Working Man’s clothes in the Style of Jackson Pollock, 1980 Centre floor: Attacked by an Unknown Man in a city Park: A Dying Women; Drawn and Painted by Mouth, 1981 On windowsill: File cabinets from Index 2 (II), 1972 Above window and facing wall right: 10 Postcards, 1077; (and on right wall) Dialectical Materialism, 1975 Below window: Untitled Painting (mirror), 1965 On door in right wall: Flags for Organisations, 1978
Room 8
Right wall: Welcome To Venice, banner for Venice Biennale, 1976; Left-Hand Third of Courbet’s Burial at Ormans Expressing a Sensuous Affection … 1981; part of Ways of Seeing, 1978 (made for re-production on the cover of Art & Language Volume IV Number 3, 1978) On floor far right: The Teachings of Karl Marx by V.I. Lenin. New York, 1930; Poster with quotation form Heights in depth and Depths in Heights by Joseph Salmon, 1651. Part of Index 04, 1973; Art-Language Volume IV Number 1, 1977 Under table far right: Art-Language Volume II Number 4, 1974 and Volume III Number 2, 1975; Catalogue for Documenta 5, 1972; Part of Index 002 (Bxall), 1973; File Cabinet from Index (I) (‘Documenta Index’), 1972 Far right foreground against table: Dialectical Materialism (Ernie Wise) 002, 1975; an ingot from Ignot, 1968; a version of Kandinsky’s Pink Sweet, 1980, made for reproduction on the cover of Art-Language Volume IV Number4, 1980
Room 8
On far right table: Studio international, July–August, 1970 showing a reproduction (?) of a work by Daniel Buren; Ratcatcher Number 4, 1976; Art & Language (catalogue) Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1980; A Realist Theory of Science by Roy Bhaskar, Hassocks, 1976; Against the Self-Images of the Age, by Alasdair MacIntyre, London 1972; Art-language Volume IV Number 2, 1977; Critique of the Gotha Programme by Karl Marx, Moscow, 1960, Art-Language Volume III Number I, 1974; English Art and Modernism: 1900–1939 by Charles Harrison, London and Indiana, 1981; The Fox (Number 2), 1975; Poster for School (an art student political organization or myth) 1976; Issue Number 3, 1979; Art-Language Volume IV Number 3, 1978: Elements of Semiology by Roland Barthes, London, 1967; open copy of Art History. Volume IV Number 4, London 1981; File boxes associated with Air Show, etc. 1966–68 Figures left to right: Mayo Thompson Michael Baldwin Weeping female (from engraving by William Blake) Victorine Meurand (1841–1901) Mel Ramsden Charles Harrison Hands from a figure in Picasso’s Minotaur and Dead Mare before a Grotto, 1936 Fred Orton
Room 9
Artist in Residence: Sigrid Holmwood Holmwood’s work draws upon many studio traditions, including the process of producing pigment and paint. Her studio in many ways is an encounter with the broken-down components of studio matter. The dyes and powders, period brushes, rustic objects and rushmatting floor reconstruct the idea of a painter of peasant life or an alchemist in a laboratory. Holmwood herself sees the space as a contemporary studio of alchemy, where the traditions inherent in the studio genre activate both the art being produced and the viewer’s experience of being in a reconstructed studio. During the run of the exhibition, Sigrid Holmwood will be in the studio as part of her work Studio Re-enactment on the following days, although the studio can be viewed when the artist is not on site: September October November December
26, 30 3, 7 14 5
The
Artist’s Studio Compton Verney Warwickshire CV35 9HZ T 01926 645 500 www.comptonverney.org.uk Registered charity no.1032478
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