23 Feb 2010 to 1 Apr 2010
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Anthony Reynolds Gallery
60 Great Marlborough Street
W1F 7BG
London
United Kingdom
Europe
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Leon Golub: Late Drawings Ian Breakwell: The Artist's Dream
23 February - 1 April 2010
FUCK DEATH says one of the works in this small exhibition of late drawings by Leon Golub, a sentiment that might well have been shared by his co-exhibitor, Ian Breakwell. The grim reaper got them both of course but the power of their work makes equally sure of their survival. The Breakwell work on show here, The Artist’s Dream (1980), is a major piece of 13 parts, a work which shows his brilliant skills as draughtsman, collagist and writer. The artist is a reasonable man....it begins…But at the end of his day of nice decisions he reluctantly lies down. The night hours pass in fitful sleep as he strives to maintain his rational grip. For at night, in his dreams, the sleep of reason begets monsters…so continues the text in the ‘study’ piece that accompanies the work. Here is a reference to Goya, the artist most important to Breakwell, a passion he shared with Golub. Both artists in their different ways emulated the Spanish master in his devastating reflections on the condition of humanity.
This exhibition is prompted by two major shows being presented elsewhere. Just opened at Quad in Derby is the first retrospective survey of Breakwell’s work since his death, presenting a selection of some of his most important pieces. It is a celebration in the city of his birth of its greatest artist since Joseph Wright. In April, a major exhibition of late drawings by Leon Golub opens at the Drawing Center in New York. Golub was a superb draughtsman, and drawing was always central to his monumental paintings; but its power is also evident in the astonishing flourish of small scale drawings that he produced in the last ten years of his life. These two important exhibitions book-end this small tribute to two artists whose ruthless but wry expositions of the mud of life set them apart as amongst the great humanitarians and great individuals of the second half of the 20th Century.
Ian Breakwell, The Elusive State of Happiness, is at Quad, Derby until 18 April. Leon Golub, Live and Die Like a Lion? opens at the Drawing Center, New York on 23 April.
for all further information please contact Anna Smith: anna@anthonyreynolds.com
