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| Duncan Grant The Queen of Sheba 1912 oil on panel Tate Gallery |
"Grant painted this in the spring of 1912 as part of an abortive decorative scheme for Newnham College, Cambridge. His cousin, Pernel Strachey, had been a student there and later became its Principal. Grant based the Queen of Sheba on Pernel Strachey, and King Solomon upon her brother, Grant's great friend the writer Lytton Strachey. Lytton had a long square-cut auburn beard at this time, and Grant gives this physical attribute to King Solomon. Diaghilev's Russian Ballet had been giving performances in London, and Grant's costumes probably owe a debt to this Russian influence. Also, Karl Goldmark's opera The Queen of Sheba was premièred in London in the winter of 1911."
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| Augustus John Lyric Fantasy ca. 1913-14 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"This is one of four murals commissioned in 1909 to decorate the hall of the house in Chelsea of Hugh Lane, a private dealer in old master paintings. John designed the composition using his own family and friends as models, including at the right his wife Ida, who had recently died. It was painted from a full-size drawing. John then painted out a figure at the centre, and suggested alterations to compensate. Hugh Lane died in 1915, and his paintings were never finished. Lyric Fantasy was not displayed, nor given its title, until 1940. John devoted his early career to these decorative murals, which he based on drawings and colour sketches."
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| Lady Davis, née Mary Halford Fan: Masques and Bergamasques ca. 1914 watercolor on fabric Tate Gallery |
"A Bergamasque is a rustic dance named after Bergamo in Italy. The style of the painting is reminiscent of the work of Charles Conder, who was a friend of the Davises and painted some decorations for their house in Holland Park."
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| André Derain The Painter and his Family ca. 1939 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"This painting is an allegorical representation of the life of an artist. It is a completely invented scene, bearing no resemblance to the solitariness of Derain's true working conditions. He has portrayed himself surrounded by members of his family, who can be seen as modern muses. His wife reads a book, a reference to the artist's literary interests. His niece holds a dog, a symbol of her fidelity to the artist. His sister-in-law brings refreshments in the manner of a maidservant in a seventeenth-century painting. The animals and fruit also symbolise aspects of the calling of an artist."
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| Ronald Ossory Dunlop Portrait of Rosalind Iden as Ophelia 1940 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"Rosalind Iden was born in Manchester in 1911, the daughter of Ben Iden Payne. She studied at the Margaret Morris School of Dancing, appeared in ballet for a number of years, and made her debut as a Shakespearian actress as Ophelia in Donald Wolfit's production of Hamlet during his first London season at the Kingsway Theatre in February 1940, when this portrait was painted."
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| Barbara Hepworth Perigord 1958 oil on panel Tate Gallery |
"The relationship between this painting and the Périgord, a region of south-west France, is unclear. The image reflects the way Hepworth was influenced by both patterns of natural growth and the loose abstract painting of French Tachisme. While remaining non-representational, the painting may bring to mind the layered structure of a flower as it opens. Hepworth's technique is unusual: black lines seem to have been made with a straw, or a similar tubular device, dipped in paint, while the gesso ground has been scratched with a five-toothed tool."
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| Ceri Richards Circular Bases 1961 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"One of the Cathédrale engloutie series, inspired by Debussy's music of that name, this painting was probably completed early in 1961. The artist, in reply to an inquiry, thought that it differed from others in the series in the quality of its technique: "It is heavily painted because the progress of the technique and feeling had produced a situation of form and colour which meant that the handling had to be strong and broad and at the same time possess subtlety of form and colour. These canvases are hardly completely complete – I never know how many manifestations of painting acts a canvas should have on it – there is always another shot at achieving the right number of marks for the right occasion – searching for the successful mutation, so to speak."
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| Eduardo Paolozzi The Silken World of Michelangelo 1967 screenprint Tate Gallery |
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| Craigie Aitchison Crucifixion 9 1987 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"Aitchison has been painting the subject of the Crucifixion all his professional life. His first one-man show in 1958 contained a small painting of the crucified Christ attended by two angels, with a landscape background divided, as here, into coloured bands. . . . Sometimes the figure of Christ has arms but usually he is armless, as in this picture. Aitchison has said, "Everybody knows who he is. He doesn't need arms." The Crucifixion is set against a hill called Goat Fell, on the Isle of Arran, a childhood holiday place."
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| Juan Muñoz The Prompter 1988 metal stage with linoleum floor, papier-mâché dwarf, wooden prompt box, bronze drum Tate Gallery |
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| Juan Muñoz The Prompter 1988 metal stage with linoleum floor, papier-mâché dwarf, wooden prompt box, bronze drum Tate Gallery |
"Designed to occupy a full corner of gallery space, the principal feature of The Prompter is a raised platform resembling a stage. At the stage's edge, a miniature prompter's box is occupied by the sculpted figure of a dwarf. Although the dwarf's upper body and head are hidden within the box, we assume the figure looks out onto the stage, which is empty except for an abandoned drum. Positioned towards the back of the stage, the drum is within the prompter's fictive gaze. Linoleum flooring of a bold geometric design covers the stage, accentuating the optical effect of spatial recession. . . . Muñoz's works are often linked to an idea of a 'baroque' aesthetic, particularly in relation to their theatricality. He acknowledged a fascination with the work of Francesco Borromini (1599-1667), an architect known for his complex, unorthodox and dramatic spatial effects. Muñoz connected the inspiration for The Prompter specifically with a visit he made to the gardens of the baroque Palace of Nymphenburg in Bavaria, which sparked an interest in its architect, François de Cuvilliés (1695-1768). . . . The 'theatrical' effects of The Prompter are problematised by the artist, not least because the stage is empty. Here, as elsewhere in his work, Muñoz offers the spectator an ambiguous relationship with the scene he creates, in that the event represented is one from which the audience seems to be excluded. He commented in 1995: 'maybe what's interesting in theatre is that you cannot answer back. And then the curtains close and you leave. A piece should have that capacity, that you cannot answer back to it.'"
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| John Baldessari Hope (Blue) supported by a Bed of Oranges (Life): Amid a Context of Allusion 1991 photographs, oil paint, vinyl paint, acrylic paint Tate Gallery |
"This is a complex wall installation made up of eleven framed and unframed panels of differing dimensions arranged in four adjoining rows. The panels present a combination of images, most of which are film stills on which the artist has made additions with paint. The dominating image, in the largest panel, is a large expanse of oranges on which two interacting human figures have been overpainted with vivid blue. From their silhouettes, it appears that one figure crouches over and holds a gun to the head of the other figure, who lies supine on the 'bed of oranges' from which the title is derived."
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| Bridget Riley Nataraja 1993 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"In the 1980s, following a visit to Egypt, Bridget Riley's work changed significantly. Adopting what she called an 'Egyptian Palette,' the artist strove for a new chromatic intensity. In order to focus on issues of colour, she greatly simplified the formal organisation of her paintings. . . . The composition is first of all worked out on paper in gouache by the artist, and then transferred onto canvas with the help of assistants. . . . Nataraja is a term from Hindu mythology which means Lord of the Dance."
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| George Condo Curtain Design for the Ballet of Monte Carlo 2000 ink on paper Tate Gallery |
– quoted texts adapted from curator's notes at the Tate Gallery