Craigie Aitchison CBE, RA ˜Girl in Field with Rivera, 1953 Oil on canvas, 142 x 112 cm
29th March – 12th May 2012
As the official representative to The Estate of Craigie Aitchison, Timothy Taylor Gallery is delighted to announce a memorial retrospective exhibition celebrating the life and work of Craigie Aitchison RA.
In a career spanning over 5 decades, Aitchison was known and admired for the Mediterranean intensity of his palette, his flat, almost two-dimensional forms and his simple icon-like compositions. His distinctive subject matter consists of still lifes, landscapes, portraits, nudes, Bedlington terriers and sheep, as well as crucifixions, all rendered in vibrant, luminous colour, invoking both the early Italian Renaissance as well as the British visionary tradition.
This is the first exhibition of Aitchison?s paintings in London since his death in 2009. The works in the show, a few of which have not been exhibited for many years, have been selected by Terry Danziger Miles, executor to The Estate of Craigie Aitchison.
Compassion, humility and poetry are the unifying features in all of Aitchison?s pared- down works; few artists have been able to express feelings of tenderness, longing and pathos so successfully. As John McEwan has written, “Aitchison was one of the subtlest, most original and purist artistic spirits of his time”.
Crucifixion I, 1991
Crucifixion I, 1991, is a masterful example of how Aitchison combined religious subject matter with a modern sensibility. Stark simplicity is the key: the large canvas is boldly divided into two vivid sections – a blood red sky and a brown ground create Rothkoesque tones. The pale and stylised Christ figure, recalling the elegance of the early Italian primitives, both dissects and unites these sections, while a golden thread links the crucifix with a heaven like single beam of light. Amongst this richness of colour, Aitchison inserts a subtle note of blue in the form of a bird, symbolising the Holy Ghost, which hovers close the dying Christ.
Other favourite themes explored in the exhibition include Aitchison?s attachment to still lifes composed of humble objects: souvenirs, knick knacks and ornaments. These unloved and sometimes broken objects are often suffused with a hint of melancholy – such as the solitary figure in Beirut Figurine, 2006, which stands against a hauntingly delicate washed blue wall. In Washing Line at Sunset, 2004, the hanging socks, trousers and other elements take on an existential and even elegiac quality. Meanwhile, Aitchison?s landscapes, such as Isle of Arran from the Mainland, 2008, have a starkly expressive quality that perfectly captures the awe felt by the artist faced with a majestic natural world.
Craigie Aitchison was born in Edinburgh in 1926. He became active on the bohemian London art scene in the 1950s and studied at the Slade School of Art alongside Michael Andrews, Victor Willing, Myles Murphy and Euan Uglow. Aitchison?s first solo exhibition was held in 1959 at the Beaux Art Gallery, owned by legenadary art dealer Helen Lassore (coincidentally, this site in Bruton Place was Timothy Taylor Gallery?s first space). He exhibited extensively throughout his career and in 1988 was elected a Royal Academician. In 1994, Aitchison won the inaugural Jerwood Painting Prize and was awarded a CBE for his contribution to British Art in 1999. A major retrospective of Aitchison?s work was held at the Royal Academy in 2003. Cragie Aitchison died in London in 2009 at the age of 83.
