Paintings 1970-2002. The exhibition comprises paintings from four decades, including a magnificent new diamond-shaped picture of particularly brilliant lyricism, and some of the delightful recent asymmetrical vignette paintings, which Art Forum (December 2001)...
Paintings 1970 2002
The directors of Art Space Gallery are delighted to present this
highly-focused survey of the work of Jeffery Camp. It comprises
paintings from four decades, including a magnificent new diamond-shaped
picture of particularly brilliant lyricism, and some of the delightful
recent asymmetrical vignette paintings, which Art Forum (December 2001)
enthusiastically described as 'fresh and loose, informed by an irreverent
eye for the distinctions between penetrating observation and glamorising
and surprisingly of the moment'.
There will also
be a small group of Camp's rarely seen sculptures.
Jeffery Camp is the art world's best-kept secret. A painter,
draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor, for more than half-a-century he
has produced work of outstanding quality which features in both public
and private collections across the country. He is an author of distinction,
whose immensely popular books Draw
and Paint (1996), have taken home-based
art instruction to new heights. But Camp's innate modesty has
in some way worked against him: the opposite of a self-promoter, he
is not the household name he should be. As Craigie Aitchison says: 'Jeffery
is the most underrated painter around'.
Born in Suffolk in 1923, Camp studied first at Lowestoft and
Ipswich Schools of Art before moving to Edinburgh College of Art, where
he was a pupil of William Gillies. That thorough early training has
stood him in good stead. Drawing has always been central to his practise,
and he continues to draw from life in the studio, and to make studies
of people and places on his travels to the south coast and around London.
His principal subject is figures in landscape, whether lovers on a cliff
top against a light-filled sea, or happy idlers in a daffodil park.
The paintings are distinguished by a rare sensitivity of touch - the
characteristic Camp dab - which deploys colour and form with
teasing exactness. It is no exaggeration to say that his paintings are
explosive in their subtlety.
Art Space Gallery has dedicated this exhibition to showing a representative
selection of Camp's paintings from the 1970's to the present
day, in the hope that it will foster a proper understanding of his place
in British art. There are signs that this is underway in a time of welcome
reassessment of the strong tradition of British figuration, and in the
wake of supportive media comment, the Tate Gallery has acquired another
major Camp painting. In the absence of the museum retrospective
he so patently deserves, Art Space Gallery is proud to present this
wide-ranging selection of exceptional works by so noted an artist.
Art Space Gallery
84 St Peter's Street
London N1 8JS
T : 020 7359 7002