Catalogue Raisonné. The Silent Sullen People Shall Weigh Your Gods and You, CR606b
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.
Search the Catalogue
The Silent Sullen People Shall Weigh Your Gods and You
CR 606b
Scotland
2004
Oil on canvas
60 x 48 inches
Citations and Comments
[That] The Silent Sullen People Shall Weigh Your Gods and You takes its title from Kipling’s poem ‘The White Man’s Burden’, indicates the complexity of Laing’s creative imagination. A grotesque, semi-naked figure of a gas-masked soldier has supplanted Leonardo’s Vitruvian man from the perfect circle of the Humanist ideal, putting mankind off-balance. With a skeletal hand he drops cluster bombs on two decapitated Iraqi soldiers and a limbless little boy.
This is tough, uncompromising stuff. And, of course, Pop was always political. But chiefly it celebrated a love affair with America. What Laing has done is turn that on its head. That is what makes these new paintings so immediately effective. He’s out-Warholed Andy, not least in the two works here which deal specifically with death. Such imagery, when splashed across the tabloids and TVs of a nation, soon sinks into the oblivion of our communication system. Take it out of that system and dress it up as art and it you re-empower it with true meaning and readdress the full horror of the original.
Catalogue Raisonné Information
We are compiling a full record of all Gerald Laing's artworks for the publication of a full Catalogue Raisonné.
If you own or have owned this work we would be most grateful for your help in ensuring that all details in the catalogue are correct - please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or fill in this form.
- Gerald Laing: From 1963 to the Present, Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, 2004
- Gerald Laing: Iraq War Paintings, Kings College, Cambridge, 2005
- Gerald Laing: Iraq War Paintings, Spike Gallery, New York, 2005