Lot 32
  • 32

Gerald Laing

Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Gerald Laing
  • Skydiver 2
  • signed, titled, dated 1963, and inscribed with stencil on the stretcher bar
  • oil on canvas
  • 182 by 152.5cm.; 71¾ by 60in.

Provenance

Richard Feigen Gallery, New York
Sale, Sotheby's London, 4th December 1974, lot 128
Private Collection, Italy

Condition

Original canvas. There is wear to the edges of the corners and the edges are slightly dirty with scuffing and handling marks which is not unusual for unframed works from this period. There are some stretcher bar marks down the centre of the composition and some scattered areas of fine surface craquelure to the blue pigment, mainly in areas along the right edge. There are some scattered surface scuff marks, notably above the centre of the bottom edge and just above the bottom right edge as well as some very minor splashes of studio paint below the skydiver's elbow, some minor spots of white paint below his helmut and some further studio spots to the red pigment. Otherwise in good original condition.Under ultra violet, there are areas which fluoresce however these appear to relate to changes in pigment and there appear to be no signs of retouching.Unframed.Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

We are grateful to The Estate of the Artist for their kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work, which will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the Artist’s work, to be published by Lund Humphries.

The Estate of Gerald Laing is preparing the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the Artist's work and would like to hear from owners of any works by the Artist so that these can be included in this comprehensive catalogue. Please write to The Estate of Gerald Laing, c/o Modern & Post-War British Art, Sotheby's, 34-35 New Bond Street, London, W1A 2AA or email at modbrit@sothebys.com.

‘During the summer of 1963, while I was working in Robert Indiana’s loft on Coenties slip in Manhattan, I discovered in Life magazine a photograph of a parachute collapsing as the parachutist (or skydiver, as they were then referred to) landed. It was a free pattern of bright red and white bands, criss-crossed by slackening white shrouds and silhouetted against a pure blue sky… I combined this image with another of the man seeming to fly unhindered at altitude, arms spread wide, as the aircraft from which he has leapt speeds away from him…These images eventually led me into abstraction’ (The Artist, Kinkell, 2006, quoted in Gerald Laing Prints & Multiples, A Catalogue Raisonne, ed. Lyndsey Ingram & Rupert Halliwell, Sims Reed Ltd., London, 2006, p.51. 

Gerald Laing first visited New York in the summer of 1963, while still studying at St Martin's School of Art in London, during which he worked as an assistant to the American Pop artist Robert Indiana. The present work was created during this pivotal time in New York (it was painted in Indiana's studio), and is a striking example of Laing's very best work. As Laing was to comment later:  'It was during that summer in New York…that I first identified the four major themes which were to preoccupy me for the next three years: Dragsters, Skydivers, Astronauts and Starlets.' On his graduation in 1964 he moved immediately to New York, which he made his base for the next five years and where he became an integral part of the city's thriving art world.

‘Dragsters, Skydivers, Astronauts and Starlets’:  these four subjects, to quote Laing himself, tell of the artist’s heady experiences of the exciting culture of the 1960s, and his desire to translate these onto canvas. These four topics reflect the values of the time: a distinctly gendered divide between men and women, the former celebrated for their athleticism, bravery and heroic exploration of uncharted waters – the Space Race a particularly notable example of this – whilst for the opposite sex, it was the erotic allure of models and celebrities such as Anna Karina and Brigitte Bardot that came to the fore.

Skydiver 2 captures this intoxicating fervour for the adventurous spirit of the sixties with aplomb. Arms spread wide, the skydiver hurtles down through a cloudless blue sky, the brightly striped parachute fluttering and unfurling behind him. It is an image of not just leaping into the unknown but plunging headlong through it, without a second thought. Exhilarating, captivating and glamorous: everything that 60s America must have appeared to the young Laing. Indeed it wasn’t just the culture that inspired him, but also the artists and their working methods: he noted with envy their huge, light-filled studios, larger canvases, and bold use of bright colours, even noting that ‘they eschewed the use of muddy palettes to which we seemed condemned, and mixed their paints wholesale on large sheets of glass…even their paint tubes were bigger than ours’ (the Artist, ibid., p.51.).

A child of post-war Britain, Laing felt a great desire to sweep away the fears and inhibitions of a society which was economically and culturally depressed. In 1957, whilst serving in the army in Belfast, Laing saw the play Look Back in Anger, which had a profound effect on him, noting that: ‘it fed my desire to sweep away all the old fears and inhibitions with which society was riddled’. This new world of advertising and mass media was a crucial inspiration: ‘The dreariness and hardship of the post-war social landscape, invoked so succinctly by Jimmy Porter, suggested to me that the perfection of the photograph and the printed image, particularly in the proselytising form of the advertisement, represented not only an ideal but also a plan for the future which could replace a discredited past’ (the Artist, ibid., p.9). 

Skydiver 2 displays Laing's excitement for and engagement with the explosion of mass communication, and is an exceptional example of his pioneering Pop Art practice. Inspired by two separate images seen in the media, these have been developed into a composite image which is totally original. The body of the skydiver is suggested through gradated dots, painted directly onto the raw canvas, a hand-made replication of the mechanical printing techniques which dominated contemporary culture. This is contrasted with flat areas of bright colour – the unmistakeable blue, white and red of the American flag – resulting in an image with unequivocally captures the zeitgeist of the time.