Catalogue Raisonné. Fountain of Sabrina
The Major Periods
1962 – 1965: Early Pop Paintings
As one of the original wave of Pop artists Gerald Laing produced some of the most significant works of the British Pop movement. His paintings reproduced images of popular heroes such as starlets, film stars, drag racers, astronauts and skydivers. His 1962 portrait of Brigitte Bardot is an iconic work of the period and regularly features in major Pop retrospectives alongside Lincoln Convertible from 1964, a commemoration of the assassination of JFK.
1965 – 1970: Utopian Abstract Sculpture
From 1965 Gerald Laing's painting evolved into abstract sculptures using the techniques and materials of car customisation - lacquering, spray-painting and chrome-plating on metal.
View all Utopian Abstract Sculpture
1970 – 1973: Sculpture In The Landscape
A move from New York to the Highlands of Scotland in 1970 saw Gerald Laing's sculpture respond to the beauty, roughness and power of the surrounding landscape.
View all Sculpture In The Landscape
1972 – 2010: Public Sculpture
Public sculptures include the the Bank Station Dragons; the Rugby Sculptures at Twickenham Stadium; the Cricketer at Lords; the Highland Clearances Memorial in Helmsdale, Sutherland and Axis Mundi in Edinburgh.
1973 – 1980: Galina Series
Inspired by the figurative sculpture of the First World War Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, in 1973 Gerald Laing began to model in clay and cast in bronze. The Galina Series and associated sculptures were his first works from this period.
1982 – 2007: Portrait Heads
Gerald Laing's portrait work includes heads and reliefs of Luciano Pavarotti, Andy Warhol, Paul Getty and Sam Wanamaker.
2002 – 2005: War Paintings
The Iraq war and the publication of images of torture at Abu Ghraib prison drew Gerald Laing back to painting for the first time in over three decades. The War Paintings series sees the starlets and all-American heroes of his early paintings take on new, more sinister roles.
2004 – 2011: New Paintings
Returning to the style and subject matter of his early pop art paintings, Gerald Laing's latest paintings feature media images of contemporary celebrities including Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss.
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Fountain of Sabrina
Catalogue No. 418
Artist's CR 385
March - April, 1980
Kinkell
Bronze
Edition of 3
125 x 75 x75 inches / 318 x 191 x191 cm , Lower bowl: 120" (305cm) diameter, 18" (50cm) height
- Gerald Laing: Paintings and Sculpture 1963–1983, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, 1983
- Gerald Laing: A Retrospective 1963–1993, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1993
- Gerald Laing: Sculpture 1968–1999, The Fine Art Society, London, 1999
- Gerald Laing, 'The Fountain of Sabrina', unpublished manuscript, 1980
- Gerald Laing: Paintings and Sculpture 1963–1983, exhibition catalogue, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, 1983
- Gerald Laing: A Retrospective 1963–1993, exhibition catalogue, The Fruitmarket Gallery, 1993
- 'After Years Underground, The Fire-Breathing Monsters are Back', The Daily Mail, 31 August
- Gerald Laing, 'Apostasy', Northern Review, 1998
- Gerald Laing: Sculpture 1968–1999, exhibition catalogue, The Fine Art Society, 1999
- Gerald Laing, 'Gerald Laing: An Autobiography', unpublished manuscript, 2011
- Tam Dalyell, 'Gerald Laing: Artist whose work encompassed Sixties Pop Art and figurative sculpture', Independent, 25 November
Sabrina, who appears in Milton’s “Comus”, was a Romano-British princess who antagonised her mother by living with her lover Estrildis. After a battle during which Estrildis was killed by her mother’s supporters, Sabrina in desperation drowned herself in the river Sture. The god Nereus took pity on her, and transformed her into the Goddess of the river, which thereafter became known as the river Sabrina (now the river Severn).
This story of redemption after an apparently irrevocable act of tragedy, while crude and arbitrary to our tastes, has obvious parallels with the hopes and concerns which are the driving force behind all religions. As a theme for sculpture it allows several levels of interpretation and approach.
At the moment of rebirth from the depths of the river, and her subsequent apotheosis, Sabrina rides on a shell in the tradition of the birth of Venus - an image, one should note, which was already over a thousand years old when Botticelli painted his masterpiece.
I have used the same device in order to stress the essential similarity of the major concerns of humanity throughout the ages, whatever the particular social and political circumstances may be.
The demeanour of the goddess is one of self-contained certainty and calm. Her right hand lightly brushes the water flowing from her headdress, in a gesture natural to one who has just come out of a river. Water flows down her body, and descends to cover those beneath her with its benign influence.
'The Fountain of Sabrina', Gerald Laing, unpublished manuscript, c. 1980