Our broadcast features a look at recent gallery acquisitions, including work by David Hockney, Rigby Graham and Henry Moore, and a sneak preview of our upcoming, and much anticipated, Jean-Nicolas Gérard ceramics show.
David Hockney
Hockney was born in Bradford in 1937. He was a brilliant draughtsman, the best known painter of his generation, and gained international success in his mid-20s. Hockney attended Bradford School of Art and Royal College of Art, where he was awarded a Gold Medal for Etching. Having settled in Los Angeles he held various teaching posts in America and was Slade Professor of Fine Art , Cambridge University, 1990.Hockney’s work is held in galleries internationally and he has had a continuous stream of one-man shows around the world. Notable works for the printed page are his illustrations for Cavafy’s Poems, 1967, and Six Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, 1969. He was elected RA in 1991 and was made Companion of Honour in 1997.
Henry Moore
Moore has been acknowledged as one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century and as the most celebrated British artist of his time. He trained at Leeds School of Art before gaining a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. By the 1930s Moore was already recognized as the leading avant-garde sculptor in England but it was his war drawings that brought him to the attention of the British public.His wider reputation was assured in 1948 when he won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale and from then on came public commissions from all over the world. Moore started printmaking in 1931, and in 1958 met the master lithographer Stanley Jones at the Curwen Press with whom he continued to make prints until the end of his life in 1986. Jean-Nicolas Gérard was born in Brazzaville (Congo) in 1954 and returned to France in 1961. He started studying ceramics in 1978 and was Jean Biagini’s student at École des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence. He also trained with Claire Bogino. Often labelled the potters’ potter Gerard’s work has a spontaneity that so many strive for.Gérard’s work has now gained international acclaim and he has exhibited all over the world, including America, Australia, China and Japan. He is one of those rare potters who brings genuine life and gusto to contemporary slipware, investing the tradition of terre vernissée with a fresh and expressive energy unlike any other.
