By: Dean Gregory, to Museum Spotlight Europe (January 2020)
The School of London, a 20th century art movement, includes artists David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. View their innovative and elegant works at the Tate Britain, Marlborough Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. The School of London produced a new generation of painters that shaped art history over the next 50 years. Visit London and enjoy the splendor of this movement at a selection of museums discussed below.
Origins of the School of London
Coined by the American painter R.B. Kitaj in 1976, the School of London became a term to capture the artists featured in the exhibition, The Human Clay, at the Hayward Gallery in London. The chief artists associated with the School of London include: R.B. Kitaj, Leon Kossoff, Howard Hodgkin, Michael Andrews, David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Francis Bacon. Contrary to the popular, conceptual and abstract art of the time, members of the School of London maintained a commitment to traditional figurative painting. These painters, particularly Auerbach, Freud, Bacon and Hockney, fearlessly explored the raw and harsh elements of human existence through sumptuous depictions.
Frank Auerbach
Both the Tate Britain and Marlborough Gallery in London feature resplendent works from the contemporary master Frank Auerbach. The Tate Britain houses the luminous landscape work Mornington Crescent – Early Morning and the transfixing portrayal of his long-time model, Julia Yardley Mills, entitled Head of J.Y.M. II, 1984-85. At the Marlborough Gallery, a rich collection of works by the painter include portraits of his wife, Julia Wolstenholme, titled Reclining Head of Julia II; one of long-time model, Estella “Stella” Olive West, named E.O.W., S.A.W. and J.J.W. in the Garden I; as well as a self-portrait of Auerbach called Self-Portrait, 1958.
Lucian Freud
The Tate Britain abounds with several seminal works of Lucian Freud. Guests enjoy Narcissus, Girl with a White Dog, and Girl with a Kitten. The painting, Girl with a White Dog, depicts Kathleen Garman, Freud’s first wife, with a white dog on her lap while she was pregnant, dressed in a revealing bathrobe. Like many artists of the School of London, Freud’s work illuminates the human body. He especially explored the robustness, fragility and psychological nuances of humanity, thus earning both the title, “Ingres of Existentialism” and an accurate reputation as Sigmund Freud’s grandson.
Francis Bacon
The Francis Bacon collection at the Tate Britain displays the artist’s seminal triptychs, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. The piece draws a parallel between the biblical scene and themes from antiquity. Bacon renders the devotion and agency of the secondary characters at the foot of the cross as three hybrid beasts echoing. According to scholars at the Tate, these beasts are a tribute to “The Eumenides, vengeful furies of Greek myth.” Historically, the work was first shown in 1945, the same year films and photographic documentations from Nazi concentration camps were shared with the world. With this complex and devastating historical context, Bacon sought to depict masterfully themes of human loss, relationships and personal lives.
David Hockney
Both the Tate and National Portrait Gallery in London showcase the vibrant works of David Hockney. Hockney’s painting, A Bigger Splash, depicts his vacation home in Los Angeles, California, where Hockney lived part time. At the Tate, the figurative portrait Man in Shower in Beverly Hills is a hallmark work on display. Prolific across media, Hockney employs new technology in cultivating his work, such as his iPad drawing applications. In 2017, Hockney’s work was celebrated with a major retrospective exhibition that traveled from the Tate Britain in England, to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Photo credits: David Hockney, American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman), 1968, acrylic on canvas © David Hockney. Photograph by Richard Schmidt. Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
