Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was a master of celebrity cult. From 1962, portraits played a major role in

his oeuvre, even though he was not a portraitist in the traditional sense of the word.

After Marilyn Monroe took her life on 5th August 1962, a sensation industry set about

creating her apotheosis. Warhol played an artistic part in this process in his own way. He

had just begun experimenting with photographs of film stars when the news of

Marilyn’s death broke. Now he produced memorial pictures with iconic status. We also

have access to Golden limited edition sets and a flower and soup can series.

The screen prints are handmade and printed on hard paper with the highest quality

archival inks, using the same techniques as the original prints by Andy Warhol and the

Factory in the late 1960’s. This makes a wonderful opportunity of to buy something that

is regarded as one of the ‘Art-Masterpieces of the 20th Century’.

Each screen print comes with a certificate of authenticity and are featured in the Andy

Warhol Catalogue Raisonne.

Marilyn Monroe open edition print 36”x36”

Flowers series 36”x36”

Blek Le Rat (1952)

Blek Le Rat is considered the Godfather and originator of Street Art.

Influenced originally by the early graffiti art in New York after a visit in 1971, he

continued to choose a style that was more suited to Paris due to the differing

architecture. He started painting stencils of rats on the street walls of Paris, describing

the rat as the ‘only free animal in the city’ and ‘one that spreads the plague everywhere

first like street art’.

French authorities soon discovered Blek’s identity in 1991 when he was arrested whilst

stenciling a replica of Caravaggio’s ‘Madonna and child’.

There are of course comparisons to the infamous Banksy. An article in the Sunday times

actually described Blek as ‘the man who gave birth to Banksy’. Both artists are playful in

their technique and concept, however Blek is more surreal and a little less focused on

social commentary. He attempts to transcend the grittiness of an urban setting and

instill a sense of the fantastical.

Banksy later acknowledged Blek’s influence on him by stating “Everytime I think I’ve

painted something slightly original, I find that Blek has done it as well twenty years

earlier”.

In October 2006, Blek Le Rat had his first solo show in the U.K at Leonard St. Gallery in

London. His American Gallery debut took place at Subliminal Projects Gallery in Los

Angeles. Blek has hugely influenced today’s’ graffiti and guerilla art and, predicts a major

art revolution in the next twenty years. He states:

“The street art movement started 40 years ago in the USA, but we are still only at the

beginning. Artists will find new ways to display and sell work that will have nothing to do

with investment and galleries. Until then, I’ll keep working, but only on public walls. I’m

too old for illegal ones.”

His Masters Voiceless (Red) 2008 74x72.5cm

John Bellany 1942

John Bellany was born at Port Seton in 1942 and studied at the Royal College of Art in

1965. He was part of a long family tradition of fishermen and ship-builders whose

imagery has fuelled much of the native, figurative art which he championed in the face

of the giants of the mid-late 20th century art world movements: abstraction, conceptual

art and Modernism.

He and his family were brought up in Calvinism, and religious or moral overtones often

permeate his work. In 1967, Bellany embarked on a moving visit to the remains of the

Buchenwald concentration camp; the effect was profound and harrowing, and

unfortunately coincided with a series of personal and emotional breakdowns, which

would occur over the next decade well into the 1970s.

Bellany’s depression led to self-destruction and serious ill health, reflected in the turmoil

of his paintings in this darker period of his life. The start of the 1980s saw a

reinvigoration in his life after a successful liver transplant operation; the transformation

in Bellany’s mood was remarkable and inspired a series of paintings supposedly started

within mere hours of his regaining consciousness.

His first international solo exhibition was held at Rosa Esman Gallery, New York in 1982

and this quickly led to a string of exhibitions on the continent and throughout the world.

In 1986 he was given the first one-man show ever to be held at the National Portrait

Gallery, London. Retrospectives of his work were held in 1983 (touring the UK, the

United States and Australia), in 1986 at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,

Edinburgh and the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 1988 at the Ruth Siegel Gallery, New

York and at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (1988-89).

He was awarded a CBE in 1994, and his works are held in major collections across

Europe and America, including the National Galleries of Scotland, the Tate collection and

the MOMA in New York. He now lives in Tuscany, a move which has continued to inspire

changes towards brighter colours in his work.

Macduff Harbour

Peter Howson 1958

Peter Howson has established a formidable reputation as one of his generation's leading

figurative painters. Many of his paintings derive inspiration from the streets of Glasgow,

where he was brought up. He is renowned for his penetrating insight into the human

condition, and his heroic portrayals of the mighty and meek.

Howson was born in London in 1958. He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1975 –

1977, and returned in 1979 to complete a Masters degree. In 1992 he was

commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to record the conflict in the former

Yugoslavia. Later he was the official war artist for the Bosnian civil war in 1993. Here he

produced some of his most shocking and controversial work detailing the atrocities,

which were taking place at the time. He was appointed official British war artist for

Bosnia in 1993.

His work has been shown in major shows around the world including the ‘Eye on

Europe’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and ‘The Naked Portrait'

exhibition in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2007.

Prior to converting to Christianity in 2000, Howson responded to pain by pursuing

hedonism. His experiences of abuse, whether self-inflicted and substance-related or the

traumatic events of his childhood have afforded him an affinity with those individuals

who are classed as somehow 'on the edge'.

The Harrowing of Hell

Mechech

Robert Lenkiewicz 1941

Robert Lenkiewicz was born in London in 1941, the son of refugees who ran a Jewish

hotel in Fordwych Road, whose elderly residents included a number of Holocaust

survivors.

Inspired by the example of Albert Schweitzer, Lenkiewicz threw open the doors of his

studios to anyone in need of a roof. Down and outs, addicts, criminals and the mentally

ill congregated there. These individuals were the subjects of his paintings as a young

man.

He was the most hardworking of artists, obsessive in his desire to record the event in

front of him. For Lenkiewicz, the act of painting was a profoundly moving experience.

"To paint oneself is to paint a portrait of someone who is going to die." The sombre

colours and subdued colours give his paintings a reflective and elegiac quality.

After his first exhibition with an established art dealer, in the 1990s Lenkiewicz's work

enjoyed growing commercial success and some recognition by the establishment. He

received a major retrospective in 1997 at Plymouth museum and Art Gallery attended

by 42,000 visitors.

The painter with Patti

Geoffrey Key 1941

Geoffrey Key’s acclaimed career as an artist spans five decades thus far. He has built

upon his early academic studies at the High School of Art and Regional College of Art in

Manchester to achieve an important national and international status and reputation

for his individual and diligent expression of form, light and colour.

His work features in private, public and corporate collections worldwide including

Salford and Manchester Art Galleries, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, Jockey Club of

Hong Kong, Societe Roquefort, Chateau de St Ouen and Perrier. He has represented the

UK in invited exhibitions in Europe and continues to be widely exhibited and collected.

in recent times one-man shows have taken place across the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia

and the USA. His work has also been the subject of a number of published books and

articles.

Horse and Rider

Landscape