The Lives Of The Artists

Vincent van Gogh spent his final day, 27 July 1890, in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, before returning to his room at the Auberge Ravoux with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. He claimed he had shot himself in the chest in a nearby wheat field, but the wound and the unusual trajectory of the bullet have led some historians to question the official story. Van Gogh survived for another day and a half, dying on 29 July 1890 in the arms of his brother Theo. The alternative theory is that he was accidentally shot by local teenagers, possibly with a gun they were playing with, and that Van Gogh chose to protect them by saying he had taken his own life.
 

William Hogarth was deeply sceptical of the fashionable Grand Tour, where wealthy young Englishmen travelled through France and Italy to study classical art and culture. He believed that blindly imitating continental art could make British artists lose their own character and originality. Hogarth argued that England itself offered abundant material for an artist, its people, streets, theatres, taverns, landscapes and rapidly changing society. Rather than copying Raphael or the Italian Old Masters, he wanted artists to look directly at life around them. His own paintings and engravings became a celebration, and often a savage satire, of 18th-century English society, suggesting that an artist did not need to cross the Channel to find subjects worthy of great art.

Portrait painting in European oil paint emerged in the 15th century, particularly in Northern Europe, with artists such as Jan van Eyck exploiting oil’s ability to achieve extraordinary detail and luminous flesh tones. During the Renaissance, Leonardo, Raphael and Titian made portraiture increasingly concerned with personality and status, while the 17th century brought the psychological intensity of Velázquez, Rembrandt and Van Dyck. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Goya, Manet and Sargent gradually loosened the tradition, until artists such as Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso radically challenged naturalistic representation, transforming the portrait from a likeness of a person into an exploration of perception, form and identity. 

Euan Uglow (1932–2000) was a British painter renowned for his intensely measured still lifes, landscapes and nudes. Born in London, he studied at Camberwell School of Art and later at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he came under the influence of William Coldstream and the Euston Road tradition. Uglow spent much of his life in London, painting slowly and methodically, using elaborate systems of measurements and geometric markers to capture the exact relationships between objects, figures and space. Although his paintings appear calm and simple, they are the result of extraordinary concentration, and he became one of the most distinctive and respected British painters of the post-war period.

When people discuss who the greatest painter of all time it really falls to two artists Titian and Velazquez. The thing is about Titian he sort of did everything that was possible first and invented so much in art culture that had never been seen before. From portrait poses, to historical allegories, to the pose series, to alter pieces that changed the world to his whole perspective on how we approach painting. So my vote goes to Titian. The king of all painters. But what I want to look at in this podcast is his life, how he lived and how he interacted with his best friend Pietro Arentino. So let’s take a look.

David Dawson studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art. Soon after completing his MA in 1991 he met Lucian Freud, becoming his studio assistant and friend for 20 years until Freud died in 2011. He was also the model for several paintings and documented the artist’s work in photographs. He is Director of the Lucian Freud Archive.

This is the story of how David Bowie became a painter and started collecting art in the mid 70's after living in Los Angeles, burnt out and on the brink of madness he moved to Berlin for a new life with Iggy Pop. Leave your thoughts in the comments and follow for new weekly episodes on THE LIVES OF THE ARTISTS.
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When most people think of Winston Churchill, they picture a man standing outside Number 10 Downing Street, cigar in hand, making the famous V for victory sign. They hear the speeches that rallied Britain during the darkest days of the Second World War. They remember the defiant Prime Minister who refused to surrender when much of Europe had fallen under Nazi control. Churchill has become one of history’s greatest political figures, a symbol of courage and determination.
 
Yet behind this public image was another Churchill, one who sought not power, but peace. Away from Parliament, military strategy and political arguments, he would often disappear into his studio or set up an easel in a garden, on a hillside or beside a lake. There, dressed in old clothes splattered with oil paint, he became simply another artist chasing light across a canvas. Over the course of his life, Churchill completed more than 500 paintings. Far from being a casual hobby, painting became one of the defining passions of his life, helping him survive political failure, personal despair and the unimaginable pressures of leading Britain through war.

Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) was born near Minsk, in present-day Belarus, before moving to Paris, where he developed a bold, expressive style of thick paint, vivid colour and distorted forms. His emotionally charged paintings had a profound influence on artists such as Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning, helping shape the course of modern painting. ** When you get to 12 mins 22 secs forward 90 seconds to hear the second part. 🙏

In conversation with Alison, Nick and Sasha, patrons of Gerry's Pompeii. The most significant work of outsider art in Britain.
Created on a stretch of Canalside and hidden behind topiary hedges Gerry's Pompeii is a strange and surreal sculpture garden created almost entirely in secret by the late Gerry Dalton.
He would spend almost everyday in this garden using crystal doorknobs - salvaged ceramics and curious found objects, including an old iPad that are embedded in the long ornate garden wall guarded by 47 statuettes each representing specific individuals.
Like the first duke of Devonshire.
It was only really after he passed away that the extent of the sculpture garden became known to the neighbourhood and the public.
This garden is so compelling - so powerful and such a testament to one mans vision and what can be achieved by anyone if they just stand up and say l am going to create something. The statues are bejewelled with gems and black cement wigs.Among the statues is a figure of Gerry himself - although noticeably he's not credited as an artist or sculptor but simply as a gardener.