Michael AyrtonThe Captive Seven 1949-50

As part of the Festival of Britain celebrations of 1951, the Arts Council invited sixty contemporary artists to submit one large-scale painting each for the 60 Paintings for '51 exhibition. Ayrton's entry was The Captive Seven, which he painted in his studio at All Soul's Place, London. It is one of the largest paintings from his so-called Italian period, a phase that began in 1946 and ended in 1951. Ayrton's frequent visits to Italy during those years stimulated a move away from the North European linearity of his earlier work towards the plasticity and clearly structured monumentality associated with Italian Renaissance painting… (read more)