AN AMERICAN GIRL (IN YORKSHIRE) | GERALD LAING

Until March 27 Willoughby Gerrish is holding a show of Gerald Laing’s work at Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden in Yorkshire.

Gerald Laing, An American Girl, cast in 1978. Courtesy of Willoughby Gerrish

Laing had an interesting life. Having aborted a career in the military, he became something of a superstar while still a student at St Martin’s, producing iconic Pop-Art paintings, including representations of French actresses Anna Karina and Brigitte Bardot. He moved to the United States in 1964 at the invitation of art dealer Richard L Feigen, and mixed with artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana (whose assistant he became), thus simultaneously becoming part of the New York avant-garde and the British Pop Art movement. 

Disillusioned with the over-commercial values of Pop Art, he moved back to the UK in 1969, swapping Manhattan for a castle on an island in the Scottish Highlands. His work took on a new dimension, becoming larger in scale and – complementing his new surroundings – more rugged. And more figurative: by the 70s he had abandoned abstraction almost entirely: in 1973 he began working on a series of bronze sculptures – the Galina series – using his second wife, Galina Vassilovna Golikova, as a model. An American Girl (above) is seen as being the culmination of this series.

‘The pose of An American Girl is Romantic’, he said of the piece, ‘driven by the expression of aggressive consumerism. She is disruptive to the viewer: confident, seductive and relaxed. The figure seems conscious of this, but at the same time it is self-contained, introspective, and completely independent.’ He likened her headscarf to a GI Joe helmet. There’s something of the 1920s flapper about her, emerging, blinking, into a Cold War world.

Laing, who died in 2011, returned full circle in his latter years, painting Pop-Art portraits of contemporary celebrities such as Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Victoria Beckham.

Until January 31, Willoughby Gerrish is also showing an appointment-only exhibition of Modern British sculpture (eponymously titled) with works by many of the ModBrit greats, including Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Elizabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Eduardo Paolozzi.