Art History ( Lesson 74/3): figurative painting/Alex colville,Botero,Katz,Auerbach,Vettriano,Andrews

Art History ( Lesson 74/3): figurative painting/Alex colville,Fernando Botero,Alex Katz,Frank Auerbach,Jack Vettriano,Michael Andrews:

During the post-war period abstract painting was often seen as the logical development for art. Yet figurative painters have not simply rested on tradition; they have produced challenging images of the human condition in a changing world.
Origins and influences:
The London-based American artist, RB Kitaj, coined the phrase "School of London" in 1976 for a generation of British figurative painters, comprising Kitaj himself, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach, and Michael Andrews. This "school" was held together by friendship, rather than stylistic similarities.
The painter David Bomberg was an important influence on the group.
After the war, he taught at Borough Polytechnic in south London, where his students included Auerbach and Kossoff. Bomberg stressed the sense of touch as well as sight.
Subject matter
The six artists mainly painted the human figure and its environment, and often sat for one another. Bacon's portrait of Freud and Freud's painting of Auerbach are now considered significant works. These artists all derive strength from the old masters.
The knowing spectator can see echoes of Van Eyck, Ingres, and Watteau in the work of Freud. Kossoff and Auerbach constantly return to London's National Gallery to make drawings after their favourites such as Titian and Poussin.
After 1945, the US also produced realist figurative painters - although the critics often ignored them in favour of Abstract Expressionists and Minimal, Pop, and Conceptual artists. Stylistically, they were disparate. Pearlstein and Katz both produced unsentimental figure studies, while Andrew Weth made more emotional paintings.

Alex colville:
The painstaking realism and formal composition of Alex Colville's work have made him the foremost Canadian figurative painter of the postwar period. Not only did he work outside the mainstream of abstract painting, he also broke with the Canadian landscape tradition.
After studying at Mount Allison University, Colville served as an official war artist during World War II - an experience that shaped his artistic principles of accurately observing and recording significant events.
Fernando Botero:
Although he is now a cosmopolitan figure with an international reputation, Fernando Botero described himself as "the most Colombian of Colombian artists", when he came to prominence in the late 1950s.
Born and brought up in Medellín, Botero embarked on his career as
an artist at the age of 16, when he exhibited at a show of local artists.
After high school, he moved to Bogotá, where he became involved
with the artistic community centred around the Café Automatica. He spent much of the 1950s travelling, before eventually settling in New York. During this period, Botero's painting developed from a Picasso-influenced style to the neo-figurative portrayals .
Alex Katz:
The detached, "modern realist" style of Alex Katz's mature work - often associated with Pop Art, but in fact pre-dating it - evolved from his attempts to reconcile elements of Abstract art with his representational works.
Studying in New York and Skowhegan, Maine, from 1946 to 1950, Katz was influenced by Abstract Expressionism. In the 1950s, however, he painted a series of portraits of his friends and family in which he developed a figurative style, with flat planes of colour and simplified figures. During the 1960s, Katz also produced a number of lithographs and screenprints in this simplified style, and some figures painted on free-standing wooden or metal cut-outs.
Frank Auerbach:
Frank Auerbach was sent to Britain from Germany by his parents, who later died in a Nazi concentration camp. After World War It, he studied at Borough Polytechnic under David Bomberg, and at St Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art.
Jack Vettriano:
A former mining engineer, Scottish painter Jack Vettriano was born Jack Hoggan, but adopted his mother's maiden name after the success of his work in the late 1980s. Entirely self-taught, he started painting as a hobby in his twenties, and first exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy annual show in 1988 Vettriano's work was an instant popular success, leading to exhibitions worldwide during the 1990s.
Michael Andrews:
Michael Andrews studied at the Slade School of Art with William Coldstream, whose theory that all artists' marks should relate to something seen, made a profound impression on him. Afterwards he became associated with the group of figurative painters loosely known as the School of London. Fellow members included Auerbach, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon During the 1960s, Andrews painted a series of party scenes that captured the mood of the time.