The Artist's Studio at Compton Verney - Exhibition guide

26 September – 13 December 2009

The

Artist’sStudio

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The Artist’s Studio

This exhibition explores the territory of the artist’s studio as aphysical space and site for artistic creation, and as a theme whichhas been reimagined and explored throughout the history of art.

The studio, often depicted by artists, has frequently become aplace for self-reflection and representation as well as a locus forexperimentation and theatre. From early representations to thepresent day the studio has also functioned as a generator of myth.

Concentrating on changing views of the studio in Britain, theexhibition begins in 1640 with the first known depiction by GeorgeJamesone. Work from Renaissance Italy, seventeenth-centuryHolland and nineteenth-century France is also included to showhow the genre was partly shaped by continental influences.

As the studio genre has evolved, so too has its documentationby photographers and filmmakers – and its preservation andreconstruction within museums and galleries. The studio continuesto be explored and revisited by artists today; and the exhibitionincludes a number of contemporary responses to this enduringtheme.

Introduction


Myths

As well as being a practical space which reflects the artistic practice of the artist, the studio is often perceived as an imaginaryor mythical site. From classical characters such as Pygmalion andApelles and Campaspe, and their associations with divine creationand power, to the idea of the artistic garret and the suffering artist,the studio has become the site for the creation of myth and literary ideas.

Room1


Self-display

Artists have often portrayed themselves in grand studio settingsfilled with works of art and evidence of financial and culturalwealth. The first known painting of a studio, from the 1640s,presents George Jamesone in an impressive pose, gesturing towardshis collection. He may have been influenced by the famous studioof Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp, which functioned as workroom,academy, gallery and display space for potential clients.

Keen to assert their presence within these impressive settings,artists have often positioned themselves in their studios toconstruct indirect self-portraits.

Popular interest in the studio has led to numerous publicationsand images on the theme. The Victorian studio images by JohnBallantyne and the 1960s publication Private View testify to thepublic’s continuing fascination with the supposedly private spacewhere the artist works.

Room2


The Studio as Workplace

Depictions of artists and assistants at work in the studio are rareuntil the age of photography, as if artists were unwilling to revealthe secrets of their working practices. Despite this, a close look atthe images throughout the exhibition reveals many technicaldetails of artists’ practice.

Treatises on the production of works of art flourished from thesixteenth century onwards. Some of these were primarily practical,such as Dürer’s Instruction on Measurement with Compass and Ruler.Others, such as Lomazzo’s Tract (translated by Richard Haydocke),explored the theoretical basis for the visual arts.

Although many artists have embraced new technology,painting equipment has changed little for several centuries. Thepalette used by Hogarth in the eighteenth century hardly differsfrom Tom Phillips’ palette today. Such items have been collected formany years, particularly by academies of art. Framed and labelled,their status takes on the form of an artistic relic.

Room3


The Studio within the Academy

For many years the usual artistic training for an artist was in thestudio of an established artist, where he or she would learnpractical skills. From late-sixteenth century Italy, the art academydeveloped as an alternative approach. In Renaissance Italy an artistwas taught to draw from classical sculpture and then from thehuman body. Drawing was seen as the foundation of artisticpractice, along with religious and historical literature. Thus duringthe eighteenth century the Royal Academy of Arts was oftendepicted with students engaged in studying casts or the nude.

Until the late-nineteenth century women were excluded fromthe academy studio, as it was thought improper for them to drawfrom the nude model.

Room4


The Model and the Studio

An important figure in the history of the studio is that of theartist’s model. Whether the model takes on the role of muse to theartist, or is merely a stranger, worked on and exposed to ‘the coldconcentration of the painter’s eye at work’, the model/artistdynamic forms an intriguing narrative in the studio genre.

Room4


Where Worlds Collide: Society and the Studio

Before the days of commercial galleries much of the social life ofthe artist was carried out in the studio. There artists could entertainfriends or clients, or engage in close discussion of their work. Assuch it is a place where two worlds often collide. Depictions of suchsociability include the chaotic academy at Burlington House, thestudio of the sculptor E.H. Baily (who lectures a group of peoplemuch smaller than himself), the elegant painting room of FrancisHayman, and the studio of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who is seenaccompanied by different female models.

The notion of the studio as a place where convention isdiscarded is also evident in literature, notably in such works asGeorge du Maurier’s Trilby, one of the most famous accounts ofParisian studio life.

Room4


The Garret

By the mid-nineteenth century the studio was often beingportrayed as an impoverished garret, with the somewhatromanticised figure of the artist foregoing any home comforts inthe pursuit of art. The genre was particularly popular in France,influenced by Henri Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème andexemplified by Octave Tassaert’s humble Interior of a Studio.Ironically, the later nineteenth century was a period of prosperityfor many artists in Britain, and as a result images of the garretstudio become less frequent.

To an extent, the portrayal of the artist in his garret is a literaryconvention, one which often intentionally substantiates the idea ofthe artist as outsider.

Room4


The Artist at Work

The depiction of the artist at work in the studio has been afavourite subject for artists since at least the seventeenth century.Some of the most important and symbolically powerfulmeditations on the nature of art and creativity date from theseventeenth century, notably works by Velázquez (Las Meninas) andVermeer (The Art of Painting), Rembrandt and Adriaen van Ostade.

Often these subjects take on the form of a self-portrait, adepiction of a collaborator or close friend, or an imaginarycomposition. In each case the studio becomes a symbol of the actof creation and of the reflectiveness which underlies this creativity.

Room4


The Studio Still Life

From the late-eighteenth century, images of the studio often takeon a more reflective quality as the studio is depicted for its ownsake. The artist is present by implication, with their possessions orequipment left as though recently in use or arranged as if taking onthe qualities of an informal still life.

Room4


An Alternative History: Women and the Studio

By the early-eighteenth century it had become fashionable formiddle and upper class women to be taught drawing or watercolourpainting. This popular pastime was most often carried out in thedomestic sphere, along with more typical female handicrafts.

Despite the success of a small number of women artists, themore serious pursuits of oil painting and sculpture were still for themost part the territory of men. It was not until the late-nineteenthcentury that women artists were able to claim an equal status withmen.

From its opening in 1871 the Slade School of Fine Art in Londonadmitted women as students, an opportunity that was eagerlytaken up. Women were granted the right to draw and paint frommale and female models, though with strict regulations regardingseparate life classes for male and female students.

Room4


The Studio Shrine

The idea of preserving a studio as a memorial to an artist is arelatively recent one. No house museums dedicated to Britisheighteenth-century artists such as William Hogarth and ThomasGainsborough retain any of their original fittings. In 1896 an effort to preserve the Kensington studio of LordLeighton, President of the Royal Academy, was unsuccessful.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, a handful ofartists’ studios have been preserved for viewing as they were left bythe artist. These include the Watts Gallery at Compton in Surrey,built and maintained as a shrine to ‘England’s Michelangelo’; LinleySambourne House in Kensington; Barbara Hepworth’s TrewynStudio in St Ives, Cornwall; Duncan Grant’s studio at Charleston,Sussex and Henry Moore’s studio and house at Perry Green in MuchHadham, Hertfordshire.

As well as the preservation of studios in situ, museums andgalleries have dedicated permanent displays to studio installationsand reconstructions. This room documents two recent examples:Francis Bacon’s studio at Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane andthe Paolozzi Studio at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh.

Room5


Photography and the Studio

Studios have always been a popular subject for photographers andthis room illustrates the contrasting approach to this subject in thework of Bruce Bernard, Gautier Deblonde, Jorge Lewinski and LordSnowdon. As a body of work spanning nearly six decades, eachphotographer’s work exhibits a strongly personal view of what thestudio, and its inhabitants, may mean.

Room6


Artists on Film

The legacy of artists on film includes footage of Degas, Monet,Matisse and Picasso. Since the Second World War the idea offilming artists, often in their studios, has been a preoccupation formany filmmakers.

This selection of post-war films offers an overview of thisilluminating material and captures artists working in and beyondtheir studios.

Room7


Beyond the Frame

Today, the studio as a frame of reference can be seen to apply tomultiple and diverse spaces. As well as traditional working spaceswhere light, space and solitude play an important part, artists canbe seen to be operating out of offices, on laptops, in libraries, withinconverted police stations, inside factory buildings, withincommunities, or on-site in art galleries and public spaces.

The physical makeup of the studio can be seen to movealongside the new demands of the artist. As a genre and theme towhich to respond, the studio continues to fascinate, challenge andevolve – questioning as it does the fundamental basis of why art isproduced and our own relationship to it.

Rooms8 + 9


The following text relates to the work of Art & Language in Room 8

A plain list of some of the things represented in Index: Studio at 3Wesley Place

On the left wall:

Right hand Third of Courbet’s Burial at Ornans expressing states ofMind that are Obsessive and compelling … 1981. Panels fromDocumenta Index (I), 1972 and Hayward Gallery Index 2 (II), 1972Poster for Fox 4, 1976; Map to Not Indicate, 1967; Atielier V, 1949 by GeorgeBraque (exhibited at ‘Westkunst’, Koln, 1981)

In doorway on left wall:

Part of IIs Donnent Leur Sang, Donnez Votre Travail, 1977; plan of mapfor Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in the Style of Jackson Pollock, 1980; part ofPicasso’s ‘Guernica’ in the style of Jackson Pollock, 1980

On guitar case:

Manet’s Olympia, 1863, reproduced as a cover for the libretto of an opera,Olympia, 1981–82

Room8


On table:

Reproduction of Courbet’s The Studio of the Painter, 1855

On the floor, far left foreground:

Sleeve of Kangaroo? LP by Art & Language and The Red Crayola, 1981:sleeve of Corrected Slogans LP by Art & Language and the Red Crayola,1976; Sleeve of Rattenmensch/Gewichtwatcher single by Art & Languageand The Red Crayola, 1981

Under table left:

Xerox Book 1968 by Ian Burn; a copy of The Fox (Number 1), 1975

On the floor behind table left:

Alternate Map for Documenta Index, 1972 (with others rolled)

On facing wall left:

Secret Painting 1967–8; Singing Man, 1975 (text is ‘Scab Shaman’sRejuvenation’); Axe of American Surrealism from ‘Illustrations for Art-Language’, 1977

Room8


Centre left of facing-wall:

Portrait of V.I. Lenin in July 1917 disguised by a wig and Working Man’sclothes in the Style of Jackson Pollock, 1980

Centre floor:

Attacked by an Unknown Man in a city Park: A Dying Women; Drawnand Painted by Mouth, 1981

On windowsill:

File cabinets from Index 2 (II), 1972

Above window and facing wall right:

10 Postcards, 1077; (and on right wall) Dialectical Materialism, 1975

Below window:

Untitled Painting (mirror), 1965

On door in right wall:

Flags for Organisations, 1978

Room8


Right wall:

Welcome To Venice, banner for Venice Biennale, 1976; Left-Hand Third ofCourbet’s Burial at Ormans Expressing a Sensuous Affection … 1981;part of Ways of Seeing, 1978 (made for re-production on the cover of Art& Language Volume IV Number 3, 1978)

On floor far right:

The Teachings of Karl Marx by V.I. Lenin. New York, 1930; Poster withquotation form Heights in depth and Depths in Heights by JosephSalmon, 1651. Part of Index 04, 1973; Art-Language Volume IV Number 1,1977

Under table far right:

Art-Language Volume II Number 4, 1974 and Volume III Number 2, 1975;Catalogue for Documenta 5, 1972; Part of Index 002 (Bxall), 1973; FileCabinet from Index (I) (‘Documenta Index’), 1972

Far right foreground against table:

Dialectical Materialism (Ernie Wise) 002, 1975; an ingot from Ignot, 1968;a version of Kandinsky’s Pink Sweet, 1980, made for reproduction on thecover of Art-Language Volume IV Number4, 1980

Room8


On far right table:

Studio international, July–August, 1970 showing a reproduction (?) of awork by Daniel Buren; Ratcatcher Number 4, 1976; Art & Language(catalogue) Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1980; A Realist Theory ofScience by Roy Bhaskar, Hassocks, 1976; Against the Self-Images of theAge, by Alasdair MacIntyre, London 1972; Art-language Volume IVNumber 2, 1977; Critique of the Gotha Programme by Karl Marx,Moscow, 1960, Art-Language Volume III Number I, 1974; English Art andModernism: 1900–1939 by Charles Harrison, London and Indiana, 1981;The Fox (Number 2), 1975; Poster for School (an art student politicalorganization or myth) 1976; Issue Number 3, 1979; Art-Language VolumeIV Number 3, 1978: Elements of Semiology by Roland Barthes, London,1967; open copy of Art History. Volume IV Number 4, London 1981; Fileboxes associated with Air Show, etc. 1966–68

Figures left to right:

Mayo ThompsonMichael BaldwinWeeping female (from engraving by William Blake)Victorine Meurand (1841–1901)Mel RamsdenCharles HarrisonHands from a figure in Picasso’s Minotaur and Dead Mare before a Grotto, 1936Fred Orton

Room8


Artist in Residence:Sigrid Holmwood

Holmwood’s work draws upon many studio traditions, including theprocess of producing pigment and paint. Her studio in many ways isan encounter with the broken-down components of studio matter.The dyes and powders, period brushes, rustic objects and rush-matting floor reconstruct the idea of a painter of peasant life or analchemist in a laboratory. Holmwood herself sees the space as acontemporary studio of alchemy, where the traditions inherent inthe studio genre activate both the art being produced and theviewer’s experience of being in a reconstructed studio.

During the run of the exhibition, Sigrid Holmwood will be in thestudio as part of her work Studio Re-enactment on the followingdays, although the studio can be viewed when the artist is not onsite:

September 26, 30October 3, 7November 14December 5

Room9


Compton VerneyWarwickshireCV35 9HZ

T 01926 645 500www.comptonverney.org.ukRegistered charity no.1032478

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The Artist's Studio at Compton Verney - Exhibition guide

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