Study after Grünewald, 1954
Pencil on paper
13" x 15"
Private collection
Untitled drawings
At this time my engagement with drawing was concerned by certain ascendency of chosen models to which I was temperamentally drawn to. That is, I was influenced by the history of German art, specifically Grunewald, Cranach, Durer, and by the drawings of Goya. The exhibition of Mexican art at Tate Gallery London (specifically the works of Rivera, Orozco and Siqueros) followed by an exhibition at the Tate Gallery by Munch.
My military service in Western Germany allowed the opportunity to further my involvement with German art between 1955 and 56, and of course later in Munich.
Looking back I can see a dual process: Revelations of the social, communal and political through the muralists on the one hand, and the internal spaces of the body and mortality expressed through Northern European art. What they both share is an absence of superfluity which has echoed in my work ever since.
Here I would use receptacle, sharpness, concealment, disclosure and representation as keywords.
Stuart Brisley 2015