Latest News
‘THE DOG 5,000 Years of The Dog in Art’ by Tamsin Pickeral
'The Dog 5,000 Years of the Dog in Art' by Tamsin Pickeral
Merrell Publishing (New York & London) has just published a major art-historical tome entitled ‘THE DOG 5,000 Years of The Dog in Art’ by Tamsin Pickeral with exquisite reproductions and an excellent and insightful text. The author Tamsin Pickeral chose Chris Gollon’s ‘Anubis & Charon’ (1997), devoting a page to the Gollon painting in the chapter entitled The Mythical Dog to feature alongside works by Breughel, Rembrandt, Titian, Velasquez, Oudry, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Rubens. She writes very intelligently and insightfully about Chris Gollon’s work and this particular painting. This beautifully-produced hardback book has some wonderful images and fascinating text about Man's ever-changing view of the dog, from one of Man's earliest beliefs in the dog as deity or psychopomp (conductor of souls), dwelling both in the physical and supernatural worlds, to a whole spectrum of belief across many cultures depicting the dog as deity or devil, noble or bestial, adored or abhorred. As the author says: "In many ways, the emergence of the dog in art, from its first marginal depictions to its increasingly central role, particularly in paintings, mirrors the dog's creeping steps over the threshold of human society. Conversely, the prevalence of the dog's appearance in art through the ages has left a vivid account of its place, and role, in human history." It is available in all good bookshops and via Amazon.
IAP Fine Art Voted Number One Gallery in East End
Art critic Martha Alexander in her article for Artists & Illustrators magazine (Issue November 2008 ) on galleries in the East End, voted IAP Fine Art as the number one gallery in the East End.
The Mona Lisa Curse
Robert Hughes
The Mona Lisa Curse (Channel 4, Sept 2008) was not a sequel to The Da Vinci Code but a thoughtful critique of the impact of celebrity culture and commercialisation on contemporary art from Warhol to Hirst. The veteran art critic Robert Hughes collected together some wise elder statesmen of the art world to throw light on how “art as a commodity” has painted over “art as art”, and the chequebook has become the guide to artistic merit. For Hughes the degradation of art is symbolised by the Mona Lisa's transformation “from artwork into celebrity icon”. At least nobody has tried to wipe the smile off her face with a moving polystyrene wall and a bucket of water. Yet.
The Mona Lisa Curse - Watch Online
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
"At IAP Fine Art we agree with Robert Hughes' views. Our gallery philosophy is a very simple one: we believe in painting. We think that in the right artist’s hands, it can have something important to say about the human condition."
David Tregunna, Director IAP Fine Art.
For Further reading see About IAP.
Interest Free Credit & Payment by instalments
October 2008 - The Arts Council's OWN ART scheme which operates in some regions of the UK was recently withdrawn from London. To compensate for this loss IAP Fine Art will offer a similar interest-free credit scheme, where payment by instalments on selected works of art is possible. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need more information.
Changing tastes, the return of figurative painting
With the Bacon market, we are witnessing a genuine shift in cultural sensibility. What used to be perceived as “difficult” now feels “real” and where Bacon paintings used to be viewed as morbid and distressing, they are now seen as exhilaratingly raw.
This shift relates to two other cultural trends: a swing in the epicentre of the art market from New York to London and the long, slow return of figurative painters to the canon of the avant-garde.
As Ivor Braka, a dealer who has bought and sold over 40 Bacons since the 1980s, explains, “For decades, there was a lot of resistance to buying Bacon at the prices of his American peers. Bacon is laden with content, whereas American buyers were brought up on a Greenbergian diet of abstraction or the cool commercialism of Pop rather than the more emotionally disturbing art of Europe.”
For full article please see The Art newspaper:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=16013
Massive Success at Newcastle-Gateshead Art Fair
NG Fair 6
In respect of the many sales and also general response to Chris Gollon's and Maggi Hambling's work, the Newcastle Gateshead Art Fair was the most successful art fair IAP Fine Art has ever enjoyed. Thank you to all those who bought Hamblings and Gollons. We would also like to thank our sponsors Malmaison Newcastle and Beefeater Gin for their kind support, and cannot recommend enough the very fine, friendly and luxurious Malmaison hotel for anyone wishing to stay in Newcastle, with views over the Tyne and the beautifully redeveloped quayside, the Baltic, Millennium Bridge and The Sage Centre. We will be back next year! Also see Gallery Tour.
Book on Chris Gollon's Stations of the Cross by Sara Maitland
Award-winning novelist Sara Maitland is now writing a book of meditations inspired by Chris Gollon's Stations of the Cross
At The Base Of The Crucifixion
Sara Maitland is a supporter of Chris Gollon's work, in particular his Stations of the Cross for St John on Bethnal Green. Her publisher, Continuum Books, (New York & London) will publish a book of her meditations on Gollon's Stations in early 2009, in which all 14 Stations will be reproduced. If you would like to be informed when this new book is published, please contact us with your email address or sign up to our Newsletter.
The Stations of the Cross will be installed by Good Friday 2009, in the beautiful Church of St John on Bethnal Green, a grade-one listed church designed by Sir John Soane. The Good Friday service is at 10am on 10th April 2009. For further information please visit the Chris Gollon Website.
Maggi Hambling at The Ivy
August 2008 - An article on Maggi Hambling's latest paintings of George Melly, now hung at London's prestigious restaurant The Ivy, has appeared in The Independent. Click Art a la Carte to view.
Chris Gollon: Fellowship, Institute of Advanced Study
The Trial
July 2008 - Following a very well-received exhibition at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Durham, in November 2007, the IAS has offered Chris Gollon a Fellowship. This will be taken up January - March 2009. The IAS is based in the Georgian, grade-one listed Cosin's Hall, Palace Green, (adjacent to Durham Cathedral).
The IAS will convert one of the academic rooms temporarily into a studio. The Institute has invited a small number of leading scientists, social scientists, professors of humanities and British artist Chris Gollon to look at what it is to be human in the 21st century. Subsections to this theme will include 'Home', 'Mind-Conciousness', 'Crises of Personhood' and 'Abjection, Bare Life & De-humanization'. Chris will produce 15 paintings during the Fellowship, which will be exhibited in spring 2009 at the IAS, and then tour. Impressed by Gollon's innovations both in technique and in his image-making, as he describes the human condition in a unique way, the IAS see his studio as a place of experimentation akin to a scientific laboratory. Chris Gollon is looking forward to his sojourn at Durham, and to the interaction and conversations with leading figures from other disciplines. For more information on the theme 'Being Human' or on the IAS, visit: Institute of Advanced Study.
See also 'Early Thoughts' on What's On.
