Those heady days seemed to last forever, Siegfried jumping around like the big idiot he was

1978
McFadyen, Jock
Jock McFadyen’s early work has been described as a mixture of the expressive and the caricature. His desire to portray everyday human experiences in a direct and expressive manner was partly nurtured by ceaseless doodling during his youth. His early work shows the influence of David Hockney in its borrowing of cartoon imagery reworked with playful references to art history. Those heady days seemed to last for ever... was made at a time when McFadyen was preoccupied with the act of making paintings that illustrated a random piece of text culled from the mass media. These snippets were often glib or ludicrous and at other times political or bleak, describing the process as ‘making irony’ by ‘pimping’ text and imagery. His ambition was to exhibit works from this period cheek-by-jowl, creating juxtapositions that mirrored the average newspaper or television news broadcast, which might feature stories covering famine or war alongside light human-interest pieces.
  • Artwork Details: 122.8 x 121.8cm
  • Edition:
  • Material description: oil on canvas
  • Credit line: © the artist
  • Theme: Figurative
  • Medium: Painting
  • Accession number: AC 2068

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

With more than 8,000 works by over 2,000 artists, it can be seen in exhibitions and public displays across the country and beyond. This website offers unprecedented access to the Collection, and information about each work can be found on this site.