| Michael Andrews
Introduction I Visiting
Information and Events I Room Guide I
Further Reading
Portraits
The Family in the Garden, 1960-62
Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigao, Fundaçao
Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbo
© June Andrews
The late 1950s and early 60s were a period of transition for Andrews.
During this time he lived at various addresses in London, Norwich
and at Digswell in Hertfordshire. The large figure compositions
displayed in this room, Late Evening on a Summer Day 1957
(no.10) and The Family in the Garden 1960-62 (no.13), evoke
the contrasts in Andrews's life at this time. Late Evening on
a Summer Day is an imagined scene of languid and erotic decadence,
influenced by the work of Pierre Bonnard. Its subject anticipates
his later fascination with parties and with bohemian life in London.
In contrast The Family in the Garden was painted at the family
home in Norwich and subtly portrays the restrained atmosphere and
manners of domestic life.
This room also contains Andrews's extraordinarily accomplished
and penetrating
Self-portrait of 1959 (no.12).
At the Slade, Andrews's tutor, William Coldstream, had advocated
an artistic ethos of 'direct statement'. This involved an open,
unpremeditated responsiveness to the subject so that the artist
enters into a dialogue with the motif, allowing the image to grow
as impressions accumulate. By the end of the 1950s this ethos of
directness had matured in Andrews's work into a distinctive artistic
vision. The unfinished appearance of the
Self-portrait, and of his portraits of his friends and contemporaries
- the painters Tim Behrens (no.14) and John Lessore (no.11) and
the photographer John Deakin (no.15) - is deliberate. Their varying
degrees of detail and finish reflect Andrews's conviction about
the way we view the world: some things are known and seen clearly;
other things are unfamiliar and seen less distinctly. He commented:
'All true appreciations of people are bound to be blurred (I think
this goes for images too). Finding a bit here, a bit there, - its
all approximate'.
Next Room
| 
