Lot 82
GERALD LAING (BRITISH 1936-2011) §
COMPACT
Auction: 18 August 2016 at 12:00 BST
Description
Signed and numbered 59/200 in pencil, screenprint in colours with diecut Mylar
Dimensions
61cm x 50cm (24in x 19.5in)
Footnote
Note:
The Pop Art movement in Britain set the tone for the visual language of the Swinging Sixties. What was to become Pop, christened apparently by the art critic Lawrence Alloway, emerged from the hugely influential Independent Group which had evolved around the ICA in London in the mid 1950s.
If any images however conjure up the spirit of the era of British Pop Art, it is the screenprints of Gerald Laing who had studied at London's St Martin's College in 1963, before moving to New York where he knew Warhol, Rosenquist and Lichtenstein, among others.
Best known for his iconic Brigitte Bardot of 1968, Laing also produced a number of other instantly recognisable screenprints including Dragsters, Pendulum, Parachutes and the coquettish sexual energy of Baby Baby Wild Things.
Laing carried on working up to his death in 2011, crossing over from a realist form of sculpture to re-embrace the essential directness and simplicity which had made his early work so hugely powerful.