Gerald Laing was one of the leading British artists of his generation. He shot to fame as a student at Saint Martin’s School of Art in the early 1960s and spent most of the decade working in New York. His paintings of film stars, dragsters, and other icons of popular culture place him as a major figure in both the British and American Pop art movements. In the late sixties his work became more abstract and sculptural, reflecting the ‘cool’ style that was coming to dominate the New York art scene. A move to the highlands of Scotland in 1969 inspired the use of more substantial forms and rugged materials. In 1973 Laing abandoned pure abstraction and began modelling in clay and casting in bronze, becoming one of the country’s leading figurative sculptors. In 2003 he returned to painting with his searing Iraq War series and images of twenty first century icons such as Amy Winehouse.
