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.

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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.

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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.

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1982 – 2007: Portrait Heads

Gerald Laing's portrait work includes heads and reliefs of Luciano Pavarotti, Andy Warhol, Paul Getty and Sam Wanamaker.

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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.

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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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Cr404 hamburgtriptychoriginal

Hamburg Triptych

CR 404

December - April, 1981

Iron

3 panels each measuring 76 x 44 inches

kinkell

Citations and Comments

The Hamburg Triptych is a narrative composed of images perceived during a visit to that city in November 1981. Though it is an image of Germany, I have used it more as metaphor for my own state of mind at the time, and as an exorcism of my own demons at a particularly difficult point in my life. It is therefore essentially a subjective work.
Panel I - Cafe Society. At 3am three fashionable young Hamburg men sit around a table in a cafe with 1930’s decor discussing literature. They are all wearing cashmere scarves of different colours wound round and round their necks, Mephisto-style. Underneath the table is something which is not discussed, but at which one of the men is unwittingly pointing. It is the corpse of an SD [Sicherheitsdienst] official. His body, slumped in rubble, has decomposed badly. His uniform, especially his armband, appear to remain uncorrupted.
Panel II - Der Held Hat Sich Verloren (The Hero has lost himself). In the back kitchen of a bordello on the Reeperbahn are a group of figures. One is Domenica, Hamburg’s most famous madame, who is an enormous Italian woman of great power, dressed in her underwear. The Hero, drunk, sees her face in triplicate. He hangs his head in a stupor, watched over by the Heavy, who is dressed like a Chicago gangster. There is money on the table. Behind them a quiet procession of young prostitutes dressed in different suggestive outfits, but appearing like a string of paper dolls, give the money they have taken for their services to an elderly woman dressed as a hospital matron, who enters their takings into an account book. Beneath the table a beautiful girl is being goosed by Domenica; this indicates the true nature of the relationship between madame and prostitute. The organisation of the brothel stands between the Hero and the young girl.
Panel III - Kinderspiele (Games for children). The sophisticated double-loop rollercoaster of the Hamburg fairground, together with sentimental items - a dolphin, heart-shaped cookies - are juxtaposed with the Hamburg Bunker, a fortification which in fact stands next to the fairground. It is a grim, shrapnel-scarred, six storey edifice with a great array of gun platforms on top of it. It is so strongly built that it is almost impossible to demolish. It has therefore been filled with boutiques, art galleries, and shops - the usual fate of a building whose original purpose has ended. Below, two figures stand in stubborn argument.

Gerald Laing, Gerald Laing: Paintings and Sculpture 1963-1983, exhibition catalogue, Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry, 1983
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