Drawing Inspiration

“Drawing is everything I do. It’s the main thing… It teaches me to look.” Paula Rego

This exhibition was originally going to take place in the autumn of 2005, however we received such an overwhelming response from artists and dealers wanting to be involved, we soon realised it was going to be a much bigger exhibition than we had originally envisaged. In order to do it properly and to give us time to produce an accompanying catalogue, we made the decision to give it more prominence and a longer run this spring.

The exhibition will examin the role of drawing in contemporary art with drawings by some of the key artists working today. There will be works by established names such as Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff and Paula Rego, who are best known for their paintings but regard drawing as central to their work. Figurative drawings will be shown alongside works by abstract artists as well as sculptors, revealing the importance of drawing in a variety of disciplines. It will also include cutting edge artists who are exploring and challenging the boundaries of traditional notions of drawings, as well as a number of up and coming artists for whom drawing provides a means to broaden and invigorate their practice.

For some artists, it is the expressive power of drawing that is the driving force, for others drawing is an exercise in looking and understanding a subject before tackling it in paint. Rego uses drawing as a form of improvisation, allowing her to develop ideas and stories with her model in the studio, but her ‘finished’ works in pastel also change and evolve as she works on them, and she regards pastel as both a drawing and a painting medium. However, this exhibition will focus primarily on drawing in its most basic form, and will concentrate on drawings which use predominantly one medium, or where line is the primary tool used to express an idea, form or mass on a two-dimensional surface.

Drawing can translate into printmaking, particularly techniques such as lithography and etching, where the needle on the waxed copper plate acts just as a pencil on paper, producing equally immediate and energetic graphic work. Lucian Freud has increasingly used etching, alongside painting, as a powerful means of expression, and several of his etched portraits and figure studies will be included in the exhibition. Frank Auerbach’s drawings are not as widely known as his thickly painted portraits and landscapes, but they remain a vital part of his work. The drawings have a similar quality to his paintings, vigorously and heavily worked, the pencil or charcoal often rubbing and tearing the surface of the paper as he works intensely in front of the model. Auerbach’s dizzying sketch, Head of Catherine Lampert (1989) is a dynamic example of his drawing which will be included in the exhibition. Hughie O’Donoghue also works in a powerfully expressive way, creating darkly dramatic and sometimes menacing drawings in charcoal, for example his Crow Study of 1988.

In complete contrast, Lewis Chamberlain works with painstaking attention to detail, and his Night Interior with Lay Figure (1996-2000), which is almost more precise than a photograph, depicts a corner of the artist’s studio, complete with a pile of defunct light bulbs which refer to the protracted period of time (four years) taken to complete the work. While Chamberlain’s drawings rely on the creation of an illusion of volume and weight through modelling in light and shade, works by Derrick Greaves and the sculptor Alison Wilding explore the possibilities of purely linear expression, focusing on the simplicity, energy and animation of the drawn line.

Including works on loan from private and public collections, as well as works from Abbot Hall’s own permanent collection, the exhibition will show an exciting and diverse range of artists, as well as a broad range of subject matter and treatment. As well as demonstrating the continuing importance and relevance of drawing for artists inBritaintoday, we hope this exhibition will open people’s eyes to the possibilities of drawing.

This exhibition will examine the role of drawing in British contemporary art. It will feature the work of a number of emerging artists, as well as more established names such as Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Paula Rego and Peter Doig, who all regard drawing as central to their working practice.

The exhibition will highlight both the vitality of drawing today and the broad range of subject matter and techniques being explored by contemporary artists in Britain. Focusing on drawing in its most basic form, the exhibition will concentrate on works which use predominantly one medium, or where line is the primary tool to express form and mass on a two dimensional surface.

For some artists it is the expressive power of drawing that is the driving force, for others drawing is an exercise in looking and understanding a subject before approaching it in paint. Drawing can translate into printmaking, particularly techniques such as lithography and etching, where the needle on the waxed copper plate acts just like a pencil on paper, producing equally immediate and energetic graphic work.

Including works on loan from private and public collections, as well as work from Abbot Hall's own permanent collection, the exhibition will show some of the differing approaches to drawing in contemporary art, and a broad range of subject matter and treatment. It will demonstrate the continuing importance and relevance of drawing for artists. As well as showing the vitality and rich diversity of drawing amongst artists in Britain today, we hope the exhibition will open people's eyes to the possibilities of drawing.

Pressetext

Drawing Inspiration
Contemporary British Drawing

mit Frank Auerbach, Lewis Chamberlain, Peter Doig, Lucian Freud, Derrick Greaves, Leon Kossoff, Hughie O´Donoghue, Paula Rego, Alison Wilding