GERALD LAING

Skydiver II

Catalogue raisonné no. 19

Artist's CR 015

1963

New York

Oil on canvas

70 x 60 inches / 0 cm

Literature:
• Gerald Laing, 'Aspen Notebook', unpublished manuscript, 1966
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Selected Citations and Comments

Skydiver II is important only because it was a first discovery of the formal yet free compositional possibilities of the skydiver as an image. The article on skydiving, from which the photograph used for this painting was taken, provided images which were used and re-used right up to the time of the first metal paintings.

The painting was worked at slowly and lacked a strong primary conception - the general lines of the composition are cliché-ridden and the helmet is highly unsatisfactory. It was accompanied by Skydiver I which was even more unsatisfactory and which I later destroyed.

Gerald Laing, 'Aspen Notebook', unpublished manuscript, 1966