Catalogue Raisonné. Twentieth Century Monument, CR289
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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Twentieth Century Monument
CR 289
Kinkell, Scotland
1973
COR-TEN and stainless steel
10 x 11 x 23 inches
Citations and Comments
In 1969 I left New York and went to live in the north of Scotland. The new environment was in sharp contrast, both physically and socially, to the one I had just left. This change affected my work. Most of the pieces I made between 1969 and 1973 were large outdoor works, and cannot be shown in this exhibition. The largest of these is Callanish, which was nicknamed by the media ‘Steelhenge’, and which is installed in a specially landscaped area in the centre of the campus of Strathclyde University in Glasgow.
Twentieth Century Monument is an example of sculpture from this period. For the first time I began using volume in my sculpture, and the finishes became far less obsessive than those I had used in New York.
From the end of 1969 to the end of 1973 all Laing’s work, however small he makes it, has the potential of great size - for example the 20th Century Monument, a new shape, has an almost illusionistic capacity for changing size. As little imagination is needed to see it dominating an American hill-top as to see it as a power-symbol dominating an executive’s desk. These suggestions already convey the meaning it has for me, which includes a glance back to the age of Hollywood. It combines the extremely ponderous shape of a flat-topped pyramid in rough Corten [sic] steel, with the still heavy but potentially active shape of an obtuse-angled form in polished stainless steel. What tension it has derives from these contrasts, and its force is buried deep down. It is like a powerful animal in deep sleep.
, Laing Mylius Scobie: Sculpture at Cleish, exhibition catalogue, Cleish Castle, near Kinross, 1975- Laing Mylius Scobie: Sculpture at Cleish, Cleish Castle, near Kinross, 1975
- Gerald Laing: Paintings and Sculpture 1963–1983, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, 1983
- Gerald Laing: Sculpture 1968–1999, The Fine Art Society, London, 1999
- Gerald Laing: Sculpture 1965–1978, The Fine Art Society, London, 2008