Gerald Laing

Gerald Laing is a British painter, printer and sculptor with a body of work that includes iconic images from the “pop” art period, representational bronze sculptures, and very recently, paintings of the Iraq war.

Laing attended Sandhurst Royal Military Academy for two years when he was 18 and did 5 years service as a professional soldier. In 1960 he joined the St Martin's School of Art .

Laing began his career as one of the British “Pop” artists of the early 1960's. During his first visit to New York in 1963 he met some emerging artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. He spent that summer working for Robert Indiana, at the same time making his own paintings in space lent to him by Indiana .

Laing's “pop” subject matter was exclusively popular heroes such as stars, astronauts, drag racers, and skydivers. He is passionate about racing cars and this became one of his favourite subjects. Laing used published pictures such as magazine and newspaper photographs as inspiration. Although his paintings were painted by hand, they referred directly to printing techniques such as silkscreen and especially “halftone”. Halftone printing produces images comprising “dots” of varying size. Laing was interested in the fact that, close to, these formed an abstract pattern which only resolved itself into a recognisable image at a distance. Laing first began to develop his “dot” painting technique whilst still at St Martin 's.

On Laing's return to London , his works were seen by the dealer Richard Feigen, who had just opened a gallery in New York . This resulted in Laing moving to New York in 1964 for his first exhibition and his work was shown regularly in galleries in New York , Chicago and Los Angeles for the remainder of the 1960s. During this period he became accepted as an American artist, for example, he was in the American pavilion at the 1967 Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil .

During this period Laing met Peter Phillips, another British artist, who was also enjoying growing success. Both Laing and Phillips were surprised by the arbitrary nature of the 1960s American art market. It seemed that virtually any work produced by an established artist would receive uncritical enthusiasm, provided that it included novelty. Their Hybrid Project, a satirical attack on the contemporary art world shown in New York in 1967, received enthusiatic reviews and only one prominent critic recognised it as a critical attack!

Laing has produced several portfolios of limited edition prints. The best known of these are the 1968 Pop prints which consist of three portfolios and one single print. These include Dragsters. Laing printed these editions personally in downtown Manhattan in 1968. All of the images are taken from the paintings of his Pop period. These lively and optimistic images were a welcome alternative to the bleak decay of Britain in the post war period, and were considered to be contemporary icons.

Returning to Britain in 1969, Laing based himself in Scotland at Kinkell Castle and became actively involved in its reconstruction for the next four years. During this time, he became more interested in sculpture. He established his own foundry in 1979 and embarked on a series of major commissions including Ten Dragons at Bank underground station in London, The Conan Doyle Memorial in Edinburgh, and the Twickenham Stadium figures.

Recently, Laing has been moved by images of injustice coming out of the Iraq war. They have inspired Laing to revert to his Pop art roots in order to immortalise these images.