Summary
During the early 1960s, British born painter Richard Smith made paintings that combined aspects of British Pop Art with those of American abstraction. In Panatella 1961(Tate T01199), Smith combined veiled reference to popular, everyday subject matter with painterly technique. Blowing up the tiny logo from a cigar wrapper to monumental, billboard like proportions, Smith explored the methods employed by the mass media to transform ordinary products into desirable, fashionable commodities. The layered paint surface of the image appears to radiate light as if it were a glowing cinema screen or a Byzantine icon. Such handling of paint subtly enhances the painting's allure.
Panatella was painted while Smith was in New York on a two year Harkness Fellowship. Returning to London in 1961, he continued to explore the interface between the methods of advertising and abstract, modernist painting. Rather than focusing on images drawn from popular culture as he had done, Smith began to concentrate on packaging itself. This led to a fascination with boxes, particularly cigarette boxes… (read more)
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