NEWS
Early Summer Treescape 2010-16, 229 x168 cm
NEWS ROUND-UP 2024
I was fortunate and delighted to have two solo exhibitions this year:
Anthony Whishaw: Treescapes
(April 20th – July 14th) at the Harley Gallery in Nottinghamshire.
Eight large-scale tree paintings were on display in the award-winning arts venue on the Welbeck Estate. Intended as an immersive experience, the exhibition formed one of a series of exhibitions, ‘The Art of Trees’, specifically relating to trees and woodland. I was delighted that the exhibition was featured in the Times newspaper a few days after the private view.
Seated Woman At Ease II 1993-4,18 x18 cm
Slim Trees 2012-15, 35 x 35 cm
Memories and Experiences: small works in conversation
(March 26th – August 28th) at the Royal Academy of Arts, Keeper’s House, London.
50 small and medium sized works spanning seven decades were hung in groups centred around recurring themes that have consistently captivated me over the years: figures, movement, nature and the illusion of space.
These tight juxtapositions are commonplace in my studio where I hang works at various stages of development to foster dialogues and guide them towards completion.
Damas De Noche 2007-11, acrylic on canvas, Private collection
‘Damas De Noche’ (2007-11)
II’d like to share a wonderful co-incidence that occurred recently. Two very different paintings, one dating from 2007-11 (Damas De Noche) and the other from 1958 (Two Men Drilling) have recently inspired a dance company and composer respectively to produce their own unique works.
Northern Dance (@northerndance_28b) has produced ‘Flores de la Noche’ a 25-minute dance piece inspired by my flower painting ‘Damas De Noche’, which evokes the strongly-scented night-blooming flowers so evocative of my time in Spain.
The work was choreographed by Maxine Fell and produced by David Leonard, with original music by Kevin Sargent with Giles Strong (guitar). It had its premier earlier in the year.
The aspiration for Northern Dance is for ‘Flores de la Noche’ to be staged both in dance theatres and art venues where works of mine could be shown alongside.
The programme notes describe the dance:
‘Sleepy flowers stretch and settle under the heat of the Spanish sun. Intoxicated and dreamy they wait for darkness. They play, merge, flare and dissipate dreaming of the night ahead. As twilight approaches, they awaken, filling the air with their beauty and scent. Sensuous and passionate their jewel-like forms glisten and dance under the star-filled sky of southern Spain.’
Click here to watch the trailer (with the sound on) :
Credits: pianist: Di Xiao, videographer: Simon Peter,
dancers: Johnny Autin and Will Hodson
Two Men Drilling 1958, oil on board, The Herbert Art Gallery
‘Two Men Drilling’ (1958)
The composer Sid Peacock (@surgeforwardmusicandarts), worked on a project to compose music inspired by art at The Herbert and Wolverhampton Art Galleries.
The project’s aim was to highlight a connection between Northern Ireland (where Sid Peacock was born) and the West Midlands (where he now lives). His focus was the ‘Troubles’ collection in Wolverhampton and the ‘Life and Landscape’ collection in The Herbert started by Ulsterman John Hewitt.
One of the two pieces he chose from The Herbert Art Gallery (@the_herbert_cov) was ‘Two Men Drilling’; a painting full of much struggle, tenderness and trust between the two men.
Click here to watch the video and music inspired by the painting:
It is my hope that these two works can be performed live together at some point in the near future.
Turbulence 2001-6, 173 x 414 cm
Microparticles Dispersing 2020-22, 122 x 173 cm
Parched Riverbed 2004-6, 30 x 45 cm
Summer Exhibitions 2022
I’m delighted to let you know about my summer exhibition activity.
I shall be showing 6 works at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022, one of which is entitled ‘Microparticles Dispersing’ consisting of millions of colourful dots representing the movement of ‘particles’ (of whatever nature they may be…)moving from or to other spatial areas within, or beyond, the canvas. This work was finished only days before it was collected for the show in May.
A solo show Anthony Whishaw at 92 : ‘A Force of Nature’at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol (9 July – 11 September 2022) running in parallel to their Earth exhibition.
This exhibition, comprising over 20 works varying in scale from over 4 metres to just 11 cm in length, brings together a selection of paintings which explore my experience and memory of nature and climate over the past 25 years.
Two works will be on show in ‘Earth : Digging Deep in British Art 1781-2022’ at the newly refurbished Royal West of England Academy in Bristol (9 July-11 September 2022), one of which is ‘Parched Riverbed’ (2004-6) a thickly textured work.
October 2021 : Solo exhibition - ‘Through The Eyes of Anthony Whishaw RA’
”The Fine Art Society in London is holding a large retrospective of Anthony’s work in our new premises on Carnaby Street in the heart of Soho. 60 works from the 1950s through to the present day will map the artist’s journey across the range of themes and approaches that have preoccupied him during this time. We have recreated a sense of his own studio space within the gallery itself.”
Florrie Evans, Director, Fine Art Society, London
September 2021 : Solo exhibition - ‘Anthony Whishaw RA : From Tonbridge to Tate’
“It is not often that one gets the chance to exhibit the work of a Senior RA in the school he attended as a boy (1944-1948) and which was instrumental in supporting him on his artistic career. The exhibition includes work from Whishaw’s schooldays to the present day.”
Selina Skipwith, curator
2020 : Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition : Anthony Whishaw RA ‘With Spain in Mind’
This exhibition in the Tenant Gallery at the Royal Academy of Arts, London explores the powerful influence Spain has had on the work of Anthony Whishaw RA, from his first visit in 1951 through to the present day.
February 2020 : Anthony Whishaw RA : ‘Works on Paper’
I am delighted to announce the publication of my second book dedicated to Works on Paper. Written by Richard Davey and published by Beam Editions it looks at a hitherto little-known area of my practice.
October 2019 : Kickstarter campaign : ‘Works On Paper’, Anthony Whishaw RA – The Book
I am delighted to announce that I shall be working in collaboration with Beam Editions and Richard Davey to produce a new book for 2020, the first comprehensive overview of over 70 years of my drawings and works on paper.
Royal Academy of Arts writer and essayist, Richard Davey, will explore themes and styles; from my early cartoons and work with studio models through to experiences of the Spanish landscape, interiors, people, nature and more.
I am seeking support for the production of this publication through crowd-funding. Click below to see the various ways you can support this project:
Click here to find out more : Anthony Whishaw RA - Kickstarter Campaign
October 2019 : Creative Boom Interview : Anthony Whishaw RA on celebrating his 90th year, how he stays focused, and why he just has to paint
Considered to be "a slow artist for a fast-moving world", Anthony Whishaw RA is to celebrate his 90th year with a new book and Kickstarter campaign, starting this month, followed by an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in February.
One of the original artists of the Kensington and Chelsea art scene during the 1950s and 60s – once a hotbed for London creativity – Whishaw's work has the rare ability to……Read more
May 2019 : Bridgeman Images Artist of the Month
I was interviewed by Aretha Campbell, Artist Manager at Bridgeman Images, for their Artist of the Month article, which you can read here.
A selection of my works are now visible on the Bridgeman Images Art Library website.
March 2019 : New website
Welcome to my new website. The intention of this new design is to give a more comprehensive and intuitive appraisal of the last 70+ years of my paintings and works on paper, many of which have not been seen before.
That said, the works displayed on the site still only represent a selection of my work.
This website will be evolving over time, so please check back to it periodically for more insights, news and enhanced functionality.
October 2018 : The Crucifixion (1956) and Last Supper (1959) : rehung at Christ Church, Kensington
Two landmark works from the 1950s, The Last Supper (1959) and The Crucifixion (1956), have been rehung in the recently refurbished Christ Church, Kensington. They complement a large contemporary painting currently on display at Tate Britain entitled Corrida (1955-6). Whishaw has lived and worked in his Kensington studio since the 1950s, a few moments away from Christ Church.
The Last Supper is one of Whishaw’s most significant early works in which he brings a seriousness and emotional weight to ordinary people and everyday situations.
The Crucifixion focuses on the intense personal suffering and loneliness without showing Christ’s entire body, the Cross or surrounding people.
July 2018 : Canwood Gallery : Experiences of Nature
This exhibition, selected from the artist’s studio, examines Whishaw’s fascination with the natural environment and draws from a body of work painted over the last 40 years.
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 languages, employing illusion and allusion. He often works on his paintings over a period of many years, making alterations and additions as he lives with the canvases.
Whishaw’s paintings vary dramatically in size, the smallest work in this exhibition, his playful ‘Spider’s Website’ measures 15 x 10 cm whilst his ‘Forest Interior Triptych’, hanging in the next door barn is 168 x 685 cm. To allow him to work on these very different scales Whishaw divides his time between two studios in Bethnal Green and Kensington.
The exhibition continues upstairs with a group of works by Whishaw’s late wife, sculptor Jean Gibson (1927-1991) and sculptor Nicole Farhi, who was taught by Jean Gibson in the Kensington studio where Whishaw still works today.
Curated by Selina Skipwith
Read more…The Observer
July 2017 : Corrida (1955-56) at Tate Britian
“Corrida’s setting is suggestive of the bullring, where bulls are confronted by men on horses as well as on foot. The painting not only relates to my experience of the bullfight, but is also about degrees of fear expressed by both humans and animals. It reconciles the influence of Francis Bacon’s distorted and grimacing figures with my reaction to the haunting imagery of Goya’s Black Paintings after I saw them in the Prado in Madrid.”
This large painting dating from 1955–6 depicts a crowd at a Spanish bullfight. Realised in muted tones of brown and ochre oil paint on canvas, the long, landscape-format composition is divided horizontally along the centre by a rail that separates the dense crowd of spectators from the startled white horse running from right to left across the foreground. The horse is cropped so that only the upper part of its body and outstretched head and neck are shown. The title, Corrida, is the Spanish term for bullfight, a shortened form of corrida de toros, literally ‘running of the bulls’. During the first stage of a bullfight, ‘picadors’ – horsemen with lances – jab at the bull. The loose, fleeing horse here may suggest that the picador has been unseated during this part of the event.
More…
Anthony Whishaw : A Monograph by Richard Davey
The long-awaited first comprehensive monograph on the artist, featuring over 160 of Whishaw’s most compelling works.
In this handsome book the art historian Richard Davey explores the seven decades of Anthony Whishaw RA’s career, from his early cubist-inspired landscapes, suffused with the dust and heat of Spain, to his later, monumental visions of the rivers and forests of southern England. In his insightful text, Davey uncovers the influences behind Whishaw’s many different themes and charts the unchanging passions that form a constant thread through his imagery, opening a window onto the artist’s endlessly inventive, playful and reflective mind.