'Pop Art To Brit Art' At Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham

Joe Tilson, 'Gagarin, Star, Triangle', Screen Print, Oil, & Polyurethane On
Wooden Reliefs,  1968

Early 2014’s busy round of gallery-going continued for me with a visit to the exhibition, ‘Pop Art To Brit Art: Modern Masters From The David Ross Collection’ at The University Of Nottingham’s Djanogly Gallery.  Whilst there, I also caught David Manley’s ‘Epidemic’ And ‘Black North’ paintings and went on to view ‘Since 1843 In The Making’, a selection of work by Nottingham Trent University Alumimni) at that institution’s Bonnington Gallery.  For now, I’ll deal with the first of those exhibitions.

‘Pop Art To Brit Art’ showcases the private collection of David Ross, University Of Nottingham graduate and co-founder of Carphone Warehouse.  The phone racket obviously pays well, (no surprise there), as in little more than twelve years, he has amassed a representative survey of British art from the last half century, (i.e. his own lifetime), the artists included being the usual, high profile suspects.  The clue is in that ‘Modern Masters’ tag line.

Jonathan Yeo, 'Portrait Of David Ross', Oil On Canvas, 2005

It’s impossible to avoid the thought that this is all just a rich man’s hobby and, if the news media are to be believed, there’s plenty about Ross to feel queasy over, (Tory party donations, playboy lifestyle, country gent affectations, alleged financial irregularities, - all the usual stuff).  However, no one ever claimed that art collectors (or artists for that matter) must all be admirable people.  The quality of much of the actual work here is impressive, which could suggest a degree of genuine engagement on Ross’ part, rather than just an exercise in ticking a list of prestigious and expensive names.  If nothing else, he may deserve credit for making it available to the public like this, unlike an increasing number of ‘investors’ nowadays.  I actually made two visits to the show over successive weekends, in the company of different friends, and it’s testament to its scope that I found plenty to engage me on both occasions.

David Hockney, 'Wilshire Boulevard, L.A.',  Oil On Canvas, 1964

The exhibition itself divides fairly neatly into three distinct groups, namely: Pop and Op Art from the 1960s and 70s, (Blake, Hockney, Hamilton, Caulfield, Riley, etc.); The more traditionally painterly, but roughly concurrent ‘School Of London’ work, (Auerbach, Kossoff Hodgkin, etc.); and the more recent YBA stuff, in much of which the Pop legacy clearly prevails through a rather more conceptual filter, (Hirst, Quinn, etc.).  The significance of, and connections between, all this have been thoroughly documented elsewhere, so, (as is my wont), I’ll just highlight a few individual pieces that caught my attention for different reasons.

Peter Blake, 'Babe Rainbow', Screen Print On Tin, 1968

• Peter Blake, ‘Babe Rainbow’, Screen Print On Tin, 1968:  I guess Blake is the jolly, favourite uncle of British Pop and the fact that this is one of his best-known images seems to establish the serious credentials of Ross’ collection.  Despite its familiarity, there’s something charming about Blake’s very British take on Pop.  It’s full of parochial nostalgia but also backed up by his undoubted skill as a figurative artist and formidable illustrative draughtsman.

Gerald Laing, 'Number Sixty Seven', Oil On Canvas, 1971

• Gerald Laing, ‘Number Sixty Seven’, Oil On Canvas, 1967:  I’ll admit Laing is an artist who has slipped under my radar until now.  His emulation of Ben-Day dots and flat colour to depict his bikini-clad model seems a straightforward enough comment on the nature of both popular imagery and mechanical reproduction now, but I can see why Ross was drawn to it.  I’m still a bit of a sucker for such references to print technology, be it in the work of Sigmar Polke or the actual fragments of fallen posters I regularly collage into my own work.

David Hockney, 'Rubber Ring Floating In A Swimming Pool', Acrylic On Canvas, 1971

• David Hockney, ‘Rubber Ring Floating In A Swimming Pool’, Acrylic On Canvas, 1971:  Like Blake, Hockney can seem a bit too accessible and over-familiar until one is confronted by his actual work and reminded just how accomplished a painter he actually was all along.  This is an unusual Hockney in its elegant near abstraction, depicting a precisely delineated, hot pink floating ring, seen from above in deep turquoise water, with a narrow, golden brown strip of mottled poolside along the lower edge.  Hockney was amongst the early painters who exploited the specific qualities of acrylic paint and his use of staining, modulation, subtle watery detail and general flatness is highly seductive here.  The painting feels like a distillation of the light-saturated, hedonistic Dolche Vita Hockney found in California at the time.

Patrick Caulfield, 'Cafe Interior: Afternoon', Acrylic On Canvas, 1973

• Patrick Caulfield, ‘Café Interior: Afternoon’, Acrylic On Canvas, 1973:  I overheard a fellow gallery goer dismissing this as tragically dated but I disagree.  Granted, Caulfield’s flat colour, crisp black outlines and sense of period design anchor his work to a particular time, but I generally find them to be full of more timeless formal concerns too.  His colour is artificial but actually deeply atmospheric and well judged here, whilst his chosen style seems as much a methodical exploration of a specific pictorial convention as a mere search for facile graphic impact, (much like the American Lichtenstein).  As is often the case, Caulfield also includes certain perceptual conundrums such as the perplexingly solid diagonal shadow extending right across this image, and lower black band cutting through the chair legs.  Both serve to disrupt the image while conforming to its overall system.

Frank Auerbach, 'To The Studios II', Oil On Board, 1977-78

• Frank Auerbach, ‘To The Studios II’, Oil On Board, 1977-78:  I no longer embrace all that existential struggle and hewing-at-the-coal-face approach to painting as much as I once did.  However, I still find something compelling in Auerbach’s work and this is a good one.  It’s interesting to see The School of London painters included here, persevering in wresting an image from the materiality of paint alongside all those concurrent references to mechanical reproduction, facile glamour and glossy modernity.  Nowadays, generally, I find Auerbach’s encrusted surfaces and space-carving brush marks far more suited to landscape subjects than the figure.  I also find in his painting all the things I fail to see in the work of Leon Kossoff, (also represented).  These closely allied painters appear similar in some ways and yet so very different in others.

R.B. Kitaj, 'Yona In Paris', Charcoal On Paper, 1982

• R.B. Kitaj, ‘Yona In Paris’, Charcoal On Paper, 1982:  Whether or not Kitaj lost the plot big-style towards the end, as some critics contend, I’m still engaged by his construction of composite images and the narrative threads that run through them.  It’s all very Jewish, but I’m mostly interested in the way he seemed to provide a bridge between the Bacon/Auerbach/Freud axis and the Pop sensibility, without ever losing his own identity.  Actually, there’s little of all that to see in this piece, - it’s just a terrific  piece of fairly traditional portrait drawing.  I was massively impressed by his drawings during my Foundation studies and still don’t know of many better draughtsmen/women, (draughtspersons?).

Richard Hamilton, 'I'm Dreaming Of A Black Christmas', Screen Print On Collotype,
Printed In Colour With Collage, 1971

• Richard Hamilton, ‘I’m Dreaming Of A Black Christmas’, Screen Print On Collotype, Printed In Colour With Collage, 1971:  Hamilton was often regarded as the presiding genius of British Pop and his work does contain a conceptual underpinning not always so evident in that of his compatriots.  The exhibition includes four of his prints, including ‘Cristea 81’, - the famous image of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser in handcuffs after a drugs bust, and an icon to the massive attitudinal changes overtaking 1960s Britain.  This one interests me more though, being the most sophisticated comment on mass media and the technology of reproduction in the show.  Having reversed an original negative movie still, Hamilton made a photorealist painting which was then further recycled into the final print.  Although immediately accessible both in subject and as an image, there’s an essential weirdness about the appearance of Bing Cosby and his environment, which speaks volumes about the translation between media.

Marc Quinn, 'Wintergarden Series', Pigment Transfer Print, 2000

• Marc Quinn, ‘Winter Garden Series’ (6 of 8), Pigment Transfer Prints, 2000:  Quinn made his name as part of the YBA set with the genuinely arresting ‘Self’, a self portrait bust cast from several pints of his own frozen blood.  These lurid and highly synthetic-looking flower photos can’t claim the same gruesome shock value but do continue his interest in suspended animation through cryogenics.  Each literally frozen arrangement comprises a selection of blooms from diverse global sources, thus commenting upon the artificiality both of their means of indefinite preservation, and the floristry trade in general.  The effort and resources required to import and then freeze the flowers is clearly an environmental nightmare, coupled with the bizarre synthesis of the whole enterprise.  What may initially appear merely kitsch and decorative actually becomes a pointed comment on our distance from ‘nature’ and preference for immortality, however misplaced, over transient beauty.

Marc Quinn, 'Wintergarden Series', Pigment Transfer Print,  2000

If one or two of the final pieces in this exhibition look like they were purchased for reasons of fashion or celebrity, this doesn’t spoil the overall exhibition, and it’s a show that should appeal to practicing artists and the casually curious alike.

‘Pop Art To Brit Art: Modern Masters From The David Ross Collection’ continues until 9 February at: Djanogly Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD.