Ged Quinn

Wilkinson Gallery, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2007

London, Wilkinson Gallery, Ged Quinn: My Great Unhappiness Gives Me a Right to Your Benevolence, 2007-08, p. 92, illustrated twice in colour
London, Saatchi Gallery, Newspeak: New British Art, 2010, p. 238, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection in raking light reveals a very short and unobtrusive hairline crack towards the centre of the upper edge. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
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Dad With Tits is a marvellous example of Ged Quinn’s signature appropriation of old master paintings, whose iconic significance is subverted through the artist’s original interventions. Departing from famous works that are deeply embedded in our retinal memory, Quinn explores their multiplicity of meaning by inserting unexpected elements into otherwise familiar landscapes or portraits.

As one of the first works from a series of portraits of authority figures, Quinn has in the present work taken the iconic representations of the first American president George Washington as a starting point. In a clever semantic play on the founding father of the United States, the artist has designated him as ‘dad’, whilst simultaneously obfuscating his sexuality through the addition of a pair of breasts. Following traditional portraiture, Washington is here placed in front of a window through which we see a volcano erupting in the background - literally referring to the creation of the new land. In its characteristic fusion of sources and subversion of established hierarchies, Dad With Tits is a highly representative work from Ged Quinn’s oeuvre, in which the artist’s humorous take on art-historically important references is explored through his technical virtuosity.