What motif could be more Impressionist than a view of the cliffs or beaches of the Normandy coastline? And with this year marking the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, we've been to Normandy to take in a show focusing on that very subject. Impressionism and the Sea at the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny sets the scene as you enter, with the cries of screeching seagulls and the sound of waves lapping on the beach. The curators bring you Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro and other names you'll be expecting, but there are some lesser-known artists to conjure with too. Partly, we assume, because there are so many other exhibitions about Impressionism going on this year, most of the pictures in Giverny have an unfamiliar feel. The stand-out Monet doesn't show the beach at Etretat , with its striking cliff formations, but the strand and cliffs at Les Petites Dalles, further east, beyond Fécamp. Nevertheless, it's very evocative,
The year was 1967. In Chichester (of all places), Mick Jagger was on trial for drug possession, and amid the media frenzy he was photographed in the back of a police van handcuffed to fellow defendant, art dealer Robert Fraser.
In 2018, Richard Hamilton's reworking of that press snapshot into one of the iconic images of British art in the 60s -- Swingeing London '67 -- is one of the highlights of Pop! Art in a Changing Britain, in the very appropriate surroundings of Chichester's Pallant House Gallery.
Hamilton, one of the pioneers of the movement in Britain, said that among the characteristics of Pop Art were that it was transient and expendable. And yet 50 years on, Pop is still all around us. Roy Lichtenstein's appropriation of the technique of the comic strip has become an advertising cliche, Eduardo Paolozzi's mosaics and statues are all over London, and Peter Blake's Everybody Razzle Dazzle ferry lights up the Mersey.
This exhibition in Chichester isn't intended to be a comprehensive overview of British Pop; it's showcasing work from the collection -- now in the hands of the Pallant -- of architect Colin St John Wilson, who was friends with many of the artists in the movement.
Paolozzi's Bunk! portfolio, which draws you in to the exhibition, is a reminder of just how early Pop started in the aftermath of World War II. In one of his magazine collages, a provocatively-dressed raven-haired woman on the cover of Intimate Confessions promises the story of how I Was a Rich Man's Plaything.
It's in the room covering Celebrity and Pleasure that things really get going in this show, spotlighting the changing attitudes that swept the country in the 50s and 60s.
Swingeing London -- framed by a construction that mimics the window of the police van -- is displayed next to Hamilton's collage of newspaper reporting of the trial following a drugs bust at Keith Richards' Sussex mansion. "Story of a girl in a fur-skin rug'', promises one sensational headline. That's all Jagger's girlfriend Marianne Faithfull was wearing when the police arrived.
Meanwhile, Peter Blake was painting the Beatles and his then wife Jann Haworth -- one of the few women in Pop Art and the rather forgotten co-creator of the Sgt. Pepper album cover -- was pioneering the soft sculpture. Her Cowboy leans nonchalantly against the wall beside the door into the next room.
Before you walk on by, though, you should take a closer look at a sculpted pair of latex legs in a display case -- Claes Oldenburg's London Knees, the bits on show between the hem of a mini-skirt and the tops of a pair of boots. You'll see how Oldenburg proposed putting up huge versions of these to loom over the capital, including one in the park behind Victoria Embankment. That would have livened up the view from the South Bank.
Post-war Britain was awash in the influence of American culture, and Derek Boshier was among the artists most keenly aware of the phenomenon.
Sex War Sex Cars Sex, a 1966 collaboration with poet Christopher Logue, seems to take Lichtenstein and ramp it up another level. "Please God -- let me die naked in a fast car crash with the radio turned full on!"
Also in this section dealing with Youth and Liberation, there's a whole wall of Gerald Laing screenprints. An idealised Brigitte Bardot is part of a series entitled Baby Baby Wild Things. Like the Allen Jones pictures nearby, these seem somewhat left behind by the early 21st-century Zeitgeist.
Of course it wasn't all hedonism. A world war had been followed by the cold war. Colin Self's work is overshadowed by the constant threat of nuclear war. Perhaps more striking than his painting Waiting Women and Two Nuclear Bombers is this aquatint, Figure No. 2:
There are some longueurs in this show. There's an awful lot of RB Kitaj, who comes over as lacking much of the sense of playfulness shared by his fellow Pop protagonists. There's a lot of Paolozzi too, though his series of prints testify to a constant inventiveness.
Before you leave, there are works by artists such as Patrick Caulfield, including Coloured Still Life, and Derrick Greaves. More abstract, less in your face, and seemingly less anchored to a specific era. Caulfield's work in particular seems to have a more timeless quality than many of the exhibits here. But then he didn't think he was a Pop Artist anyway.
Derek Boshier, Sex War Sex Cars Sex, 1968, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (Purchased with support from a number of donors, 2018) (c) Derek Boshier. All Rights reserved, DACS 2018
Colin Self, Figure No.2 (Triptych), 1971, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, 2006) (c) Colin Self. All rights reserved, DACS 2018
In 2018, Richard Hamilton's reworking of that press snapshot into one of the iconic images of British art in the 60s -- Swingeing London '67 -- is one of the highlights of Pop! Art in a Changing Britain, in the very appropriate surroundings of Chichester's Pallant House Gallery.
Hamilton, one of the pioneers of the movement in Britain, said that among the characteristics of Pop Art were that it was transient and expendable. And yet 50 years on, Pop is still all around us. Roy Lichtenstein's appropriation of the technique of the comic strip has become an advertising cliche, Eduardo Paolozzi's mosaics and statues are all over London, and Peter Blake's Everybody Razzle Dazzle ferry lights up the Mersey.
This exhibition in Chichester isn't intended to be a comprehensive overview of British Pop; it's showcasing work from the collection -- now in the hands of the Pallant -- of architect Colin St John Wilson, who was friends with many of the artists in the movement.
Paolozzi's Bunk! portfolio, which draws you in to the exhibition, is a reminder of just how early Pop started in the aftermath of World War II. In one of his magazine collages, a provocatively-dressed raven-haired woman on the cover of Intimate Confessions promises the story of how I Was a Rich Man's Plaything.
It's in the room covering Celebrity and Pleasure that things really get going in this show, spotlighting the changing attitudes that swept the country in the 50s and 60s.
Swingeing London -- framed by a construction that mimics the window of the police van -- is displayed next to Hamilton's collage of newspaper reporting of the trial following a drugs bust at Keith Richards' Sussex mansion. "Story of a girl in a fur-skin rug'', promises one sensational headline. That's all Jagger's girlfriend Marianne Faithfull was wearing when the police arrived.
Meanwhile, Peter Blake was painting the Beatles and his then wife Jann Haworth -- one of the few women in Pop Art and the rather forgotten co-creator of the Sgt. Pepper album cover -- was pioneering the soft sculpture. Her Cowboy leans nonchalantly against the wall beside the door into the next room.
Before you walk on by, though, you should take a closer look at a sculpted pair of latex legs in a display case -- Claes Oldenburg's London Knees, the bits on show between the hem of a mini-skirt and the tops of a pair of boots. You'll see how Oldenburg proposed putting up huge versions of these to loom over the capital, including one in the park behind Victoria Embankment. That would have livened up the view from the South Bank.
Post-war Britain was awash in the influence of American culture, and Derek Boshier was among the artists most keenly aware of the phenomenon.
Also in this section dealing with Youth and Liberation, there's a whole wall of Gerald Laing screenprints. An idealised Brigitte Bardot is part of a series entitled Baby Baby Wild Things. Like the Allen Jones pictures nearby, these seem somewhat left behind by the early 21st-century Zeitgeist.
Of course it wasn't all hedonism. A world war had been followed by the cold war. Colin Self's work is overshadowed by the constant threat of nuclear war. Perhaps more striking than his painting Waiting Women and Two Nuclear Bombers is this aquatint, Figure No. 2:
Before you leave, there are works by artists such as Patrick Caulfield, including Coloured Still Life, and Derrick Greaves. More abstract, less in your face, and seemingly less anchored to a specific era. Caulfield's work in particular seems to have a more timeless quality than many of the exhibits here. But then he didn't think he was a Pop Artist anyway.
Practicalities
Pop! Art in a Changing Britain is on at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester until May 7. It's open 1000 to 1700 Tuesdays to Saturdays (late until 2000 on Thursdays) and 1100 to 1700 on Sundays. Admission to the gallery including the show costs a standard £11, or a bargain £5.50 on Tuesdays and on Thursdays after 1700.
The gallery is less than 10 minutes' walk from Chichester station, to which there's a train every half an hour from London Victoria. The journey takes 90 minutes.
Richard Hamilton, Swingeing London '67, 1968, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, 2006) (c) The Estate of the Artist. All rights reserved, DACS 2018Images
Derek Boshier, Sex War Sex Cars Sex, 1968, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (Purchased with support from a number of donors, 2018) (c) Derek Boshier. All Rights reserved, DACS 2018
Colin Self, Figure No.2 (Triptych), 1971, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, 2006) (c) Colin Self. All rights reserved, DACS 2018
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