Anthony Whishaw, ra
Anthony Whishaw, ra Paintings from the late 1960s - 2015 2 - 31 March 2016
Monday - Friday 10.00 - 5.30 Saturday 11.00 - 2.00
Browse & Darby 19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP Tel: 020 7734 7984 Fax: 0207851 6650 email: art@browseanddarby.co.uk www. browseanddarby.co.uk
Anthony Whishaw RA Paintings from the mid-1960s - 2015 This exhibition, the first retrospective of Tony Whishaw’s career since 2000, is substantially overdue. He has been producing challenging, thought provoking paintings for well over 50 years but, not being aligned to any of the contemporary groups or schools, his work cannot be conveniently categorised. Over this long period he has fiercely guarded his independence. Whishaw shares with the best of his contemporaries an expansively international outlook stimulated by his childhood upbringing in Brazil. He early and abidingly turned to Spain, where he went for his travelling scholarship in the early 1950s. He was excited both by the great Spanish artists, Velasquez, Goya, Zurbaran, Picasso and, more recently, Tapies and by the harsh landscape. The latter is perhaps from where the tough dryness and grittiness of his canvasses stems and in embracing this he eschews English lushness and lyricism. Whishaw’s work is challenging - he makes the viewer work hard to interpret his warping and skewing of space and form and he acknowledges that he explores unusual visual language, employing illusion and allusion. He takes impish delight in visual puns and sets out to confuse the viewer in his collages as to whether he is seeing the actual or the painted. The works reveal their content gradually, being layered and multi-faceted. Though he has worked consistently on specific themes and subjects over several decades, he has never fallen into the trap of endlessly repeating a winning formula, the downfall of so many artists striving for popularity. That he continues, well into his eighties, to reinterpret these themes - landscapes, cityscapes and interiors - with as sharp and inquisitive an eye as ever is to be celebrated and it is fitting that this celebration should be at Browse and Darby, the gallery that first brought him to the public’s attention with three exhibitions in 1960s. Together with the publication of the new book on his work, it should spark renewed interest in his substantial achievement.
Patrick Bourne.
1. Blue Road Northwards II, 1967, oil on board, 152 x 160 cms
2. Eucalyptus 1967, oil on board, 20 x 20 cms
3. Life Class, St Martin’s 1968, oil on board, 20 x 46 cms
4. Blue Road Northwards I, Variation 1969, acrylic & collage on board, 28 x 26 cms
5. First Appearance in Oil Seed Rape, 1971, oil on canvas, 23 x 40 cms
6. Still Night Sea with Gibraltar in Mind 1975-2011, acrylic on canvas, 230 x 75 cms
7. Red Night Interior 1985-1986, acrylic on canvas, 178 x 152 cms
8. Bouquet (Triptych) 1988-2010, acrylic & collage on canvas, 152 x 226 cms
9. Caprice 1984-1991, acrylic and collage on canvas, 30 x 30 cms
10. Pawn Observes Knight 1985, mixed media on board, 12 x 18 cms
11. From Las Meninas 1985-1994, acrylic on board, 14 x 16 cms
12. Open Window 1988-1992, acrylic and collage on canvas, 30 x 30 cms
13. Green Interior 1989, acrylic on board, 20 x 20 cms
14. Mirror 1989, acrylic and collage on board, 20 x 20 cms
15. Landscape with Target 1991-1992, acrylic and mixed media on board, 35 x 38 cms
16. Taking Aim II 1991-2015, mixed media with shot pellets on board, 30 x 60 cms
17. A Different Ball Game 1993-2009, acrylic and collage on board, 60 x 86 cms
18. Spanish Interior with Mirror and Painting 1993-1995, acrylic and collage on board, 14 x 20 cms
19. Interior Variations II 1994-2014, collage on board, 36 x 122 cms
20. Memory Block 1997-1999, acrylic and collage on board, 61 x 62 cms
21. Dice 2000 (Quadriptych), acrylic on canvas, 56 x 25 cms
22. Sportif II, Bounce 2001-2002 (Triptych), mixed media on canvas and board, 40.5 x 83 cms
23. Cocktail 2001-2014, acrylic on canvas, 25 x 25 cms
24. Fallout 2001-2014 (Triptych), acrylic on canvas, 61 x 23 cms
25. Green Weir 2002-2008 (Quadriptych), acrylic on canvas, 93 x 36 cms
26. Horizons 2002 (Quadriptych), acrylic on board, 48 x 36 cms
27. Horizon III (Sextych) 2002, acrylic on board, 57 x 40 cms
28. Facade 2003-2014, mixed media on canvas, 92 x 92 cms
29. Seashore 2003-2015, acrylic and collage on canvas, 20 x 50 cms
30. Downstream, Brasura II 2003-2004, acrylic and collage on board, 52 x 42 cms
31. Submerged City II 2004, acrylic and collage on canvas 70 x 92 cms
32. Urban Flood III 2004-2015, acrylic and collage on canvas, 92 x 76 cms
33. Shaped Landscape 2004-2008, acrylic on board, 22 x 43 cms
34. Ochre Weir (Triptych) 2005-2010, acrylic on canvas and board, 57 x 40 cms
35. Celestial 2007-2010, acrylic on canvas, 168 x 229 cms
36. Pink Interior 2008-2015, mixed media on board, 20 x 40 cms
37. From Outside 2010-2015, acrylic and collage on board, 76 x 76 cms
38. Burnt Autumn Stubble, Regrowth 2011-2012, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 182 cms
Browse & Darby
19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP