A new Arts Council Collection exhibition of paintings of the figure will open at Leeds Art Gallery in March 2015, followed by a tour to Nottingham, Drogheda, Southport and Eastbourne.
Curated by Jennifer Higgie, editor of Frieze. She says, "It will look at a kind of everyday theatricality – the body represented in all of its idiosyncrasies as if on a painterly stage. The 20th-century highlights include the beautiful study of a woman by Walter Sickert from 1906, her forehead patterned like a diamond; the acute, light-filled brilliance of Lucian Freud’s portraits of the 1950s; and the exuberant explosion of Pop channeled through representations of the body in the 1960s and ‘70s, in the work of artists such as Bob Robinson, Richard Hamilton and David Hockney. In more recent years, the Arts Council Collection has acquired a group of fantastically interesting paintings by artists including Michael Fullerton, Rose Wylie and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Other works that could be considered 'expanded painting' by contemporary artists include Enrico David, David Noonan and Rene So - who explore painting's potential through tapestry, silkscreen and sculpture - and who place the body centre stage, sometimes literally.”
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