Catalogue Raisonné. Loop (Hinged)
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.
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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.
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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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Loop (Hinged)
Catalogue No. 89
Artist's CR 086a
1965
New York
Metalflake and acrylic on aluminium, and polished stainless steel
79 x 41 x21 inches / 201 x 104 x53 cm
Collection: Private collection
- Gerald Laing: A Retrospective 1963–1993, exhibition catalogue, The Fruitmarket Gallery, 1993
Laing’s Loop (1965) and Indenty (1966) are full of Baroque shifts which run laterally and vertically through the application of acrylic lacquer, metalflake and chromium which adorn the flat forms. This flatness is their key characteristic: they are zig-zagging silhouettes, as thin as a ballet dancer frontally addressing an audience, like Laing’s self, risen as the sculpted dancer in his Adam (1986). The overlay of painted curvilinear patterns renders the implacable surface of aluminium (in Loop, for example) ambiguous and playful.
Gerald Laing: A Retrospective 1963–1993, David Alan Mellor, 'Gerald Laing: Swift Passages and the Monumental Imagination', in, exhibition catalogue, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1993, p.2