Catalogue Raisonné. Pyramid Ia
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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Pyramid Ia
Catalogue No. 292
Artist's CR 282
1971
Kinkell
Polished steel, marble base
26 x 29 x13.5 inches / 66 x 74 x34 cm
Collection: Private collection
- Gerald Laing and Alasdair Hamilton, 1971: Gerald Laing, exhibition catalogue, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1971
- William Peterson, 'Gerald Laing', Artspace, Winter 1976–7
The most recent pieces, of which this is an example, differ from past work in several respects. They contain definite sculptural volume. They are usually monochromatic, and consequently they seldom describe painterly volume. They are often symmetrical. I am interested now, perhaps through this symmetry, in creating a sense of completeness within the piece, and then using this sense of wholeness to make in turn a definite location or place - a nodal point as portable and as constant as the sculpture which creates it. Concomitants of this are coherent siting and linking of nodal points, and an instigation of events around them, either personal or general.
1971: Gerald Laing, Gerald Laing, exhibition catalogue, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1971