JOCK MCFADYEN R.A. (SCOTTISH B.1950) §
SHELTER
£2,000
Auction: 16 March 2016 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Signed and dated '91, gouache
Dimensions
76cm x 58cm (30in x 23in)
Footnote
Note: McFadyen's work has had a series of different focus points: moving from the witty conjectures he made in Art College, to the population of London East End waifs and strays of the 1980s before he started to produce less figurative work in the 1990s as the urban landscape became his predominant subject.
Throughout his career, as well as exhibiting prolifically, McFadyen has been involved in a wide range of interesting commissions and collaborations. This began with his appointment as Artist in Residence at the National Gallery in London in 1981, which was the catalyst of his move to observed working, of which the East End waifs and strays were the result. In the early 1990s he was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to record events around the dismantling of the Berlin Wall before working on the set and costumes for ballet performances at the Royal Opera House.
McFayen has claimed that his painterly influences include Sickert, Whistler and Lowry but for the most part he finds his inspiration in 1970s realist film and contemporary novels and music rather than art. As a result he has worked in collaboration with a range of writers including Iain Sinclair, Howard Jacobson and Will Self. In 2005, he took his collaborative efforts a step further by founding The Grey Gallery, with his wife, the musician Susie Honeyman. It is a nomadic entity which works with artists, writers and musicians on a project basis, with the intention of working across disciplines and outside of existing frameworks established by dealers and curators.
McFadyen's talent has been consistently recognised and celebrated, through his high-profile commissions as well as with the inclusion of his work in 30 public collections, as well as private collections worldwide. He was elected a Royal Academician in 2012, confirming his place within the British artistic establishment.