Young men in pinstriped suits are the recurring motif in the oils on canvas (£1500-17,500) of Graham Hugh Doig McKean (born 1962), whose solo show continues until April 13 at the Albemarle Gallery (49 Albemarle Street, W1S 4JR. Tel: 020 7499 1616). Rarely using models, McKean first produces a small, detailed pencil drawing of his initial idea and then “grids” the image to enable it to be “scaled up” onto the chosen size of canvas, some of these exceeding 7ft.
Equally piquant figurative work can be seen at the Portal Gallery (43 Dover Street, W1S 4NU. Tel: 020 7493 0706) via the humorous images of Beryl Cook (born 1926). This month brings the release of two new prints by the artist – Clubbing in the Rain (£300), a signed litho in an edition of 650 and Escargots pour trois (£750), a signed silkscreen. Excluding these, the gallery is currently offering a 15 per cent discount on all Cook’s prints, of which there are over 30, ranging in price from £200 for offset lithos such as Dancing on the Bar and Two on a Stool, to £2750 for the silkscreen Nude on Leopardskin. The gallery also has, of course, a number of oils by Cook but these come in at around £25,000 each.
How very different Josef Herman’s (1911-2000) approach to the figure is – in a restricted palette, he focused mainly on labourers. Until April 13 works on paper by him can be seen at the Boundary Gallery (98 Boundary Road, NW8 0RH. Tel: 020 7624 1126).
While the retrospective of works by George Manchester (1922-1996) and Basil Nubel (1923-1981) continues until April 12 at the Bloxham Galleries (4-5 The Parade, 135 St John’s Hill, SW11 1TG. Tel: 020 7924 7500), the gallery mount Tastefully Rich at the newly restored Victorian Old French Chocolate Factory (Menier Gallery, 51 Southwark Street, SE1 1TE. Tel: 020 7407 5388).
The exhibition, which continues until April 18, is a celebration of the seductive delights of the human form and brings with it the launch of three new etchings by Willi Kissmer, who was born in Germany in 1951. In this show, painters such as John Parks (born 1952), Jürgen Görg (born 1951), Stephanie Rew (born 1971), Artur Golacki (born 1956), Peter Handel (born 1949) and Lee Jones (born 1968), together with sculptors Ronald Cameron (born 1930) and David Klein (born 1962), tend to concentrate more on the curvaceous!
In his oils painted either on canvas or wood panel, Russian painter Konstantin Bessmertny uses vivid imagination to present an amusing, satirical world of familiar surroundings, inhabited by rather strange people. His solo show continues until April 28 at the Kings Road Gallery (436 Kings Road, SW10 0LJ. Tel: 020 7351 1367) and includes Triumph (£4950) and the acrylic diptych, Histoire d’une Fuite (£17,650).
Bulgarian artist, Plamen Kapitanski (born 1964) works in a number of different styles including abstract, but is at his most ingenious when creating his multi-figurative paintings influenced by frescos, a selection of which will be a feature of his solo show between April 22-27 at The Gallery in Cork Street (28 Cork Street, W1S 3NG. Tel: 020 7437 2812).
Highly vivacious brushwork is the key characteristic of Ken Paine’s (born 1926) distinctive portraits, which have a hanging until April 20 at The Linda Blackstone Gallery (Rear of 13 High Street, Pinner HA5 5QQ. Tel: 020 8868 5765). Also showing are works by Claire Spencer (born 1937) and Barbara Stewart (born 1929), who, like Paine, are members of the Pastel Society, although they paint in various mediums.
Figuring out the best way of depicting our fellow humans
IN 1528 Albrecht Dürer wrote: “There lives no man upon earth who can give a final judgement upon what the most beautiful shape of a man may be; God only knows that.” As five exhibitions highlight, artists love to expose all the inconsistency of the human form, be it scrawny or rotund.
