Maggi Hambling
Encyclopedia
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
. Perhaps her best known public works are a memorial to Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
in central London and Scallop, a 4 metre high steel sculpture of two interlocking scallop shells on Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
beach dedicated to Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
. Both works have proved controversial.
Hambling studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing
East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing
The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing was an art learning environment established by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines in East Anglia in 1937. It was run on very idiosyncratic lines based upon the "free rein" approach that was then current in French academies...
from 1960 under Cedric Morris
Cedric Morris
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea but worked mainly in East Anglia...
, then at Ipswich School of Art
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
(1962–4), Camberwell
Camberwell College of Arts
Camberwell College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, and is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost art and design institutions. It is located in Camberwell, South London, England, with two sites situated at Peckham Road and Wilson Road...
(1964-7), and finally the Slade School of Art graduating in 1969.
In 1980, Hambling became the first Artist in Residence at the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, London, during which she produced a series of portraits of the comedian Max Wall
Max Wall
Max Wall , was an English comedian and actor, whose performing career covered music hall, theatre, films and television.-Early years:...
. Wall responded to Hambling's request to paint him with a note saying: "Re: painting little me, I am flattered indeed - what colour?" Yvonne Drewey, her art teacher at Amberfield School
Amberfield School
Amberfield School was a small private school in Nacton, England, coeducational up to the age of 7 years, and for girls up to the age of 16 years, which was established in 1927 and closed in 2011 due to financial problems. The last headmistress was Linda Ingram. It was set in countryside with...
, described her as being her "pride and joy".
Hambling is well known as a portraitist with several works in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her style tends towards the expressionistic, with some portraits completed during live sittings and others painted later, partly from memory. In the 1980s, she turned more to painting landscapes, most especially of the area around Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
where she lives. More recently her canvases have been more abstract, often including highlights of vivid colour, in particular her dramatic Seascapes of the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
.
In 1995, she was awarded the Jerwood Painting Prize along with Patrick Caulfield
Patrick Caulfield
Patrick Joseph Caulfield, CBE, RA was an English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of Photorealism within a pared down scene.-Life and work:...
. In the same year she was awarded an OBE for her services to painting.
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
, George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
, Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
and Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp , was an English writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant.- Early life :...
. In 1998 and in 2006, she collaborated with IAP Fine Art, London, to publish editions of silk-screen prints of her portraits of Jarman, Melly and Fry (launched by Stephen Fry and George Melly) to raise money for the Terrence Higgins Trust, helping people with HIV and AIDS. In the late 1990s Hambling had an intimate relationship with the 'Soho beauty' Henrietta Moraes
Henrietta Moraes
Henrietta Moraes was a British artists' model, bohémienne, and memoirist. During the 1950s and '60s, she was the muse and inspiration for many artists of the Soho subculture, like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, and known for her marriages and love affairs.A femme fatale and a bon vivant, she was...
as Moraes' life was drawing to a close. Hambling described her as her muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
.
In 2003 Hambling was commissioned to produce a sculpture to commemorate Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
. The result was Scallop, a pair of oversized, 12 ft (3.7 m) high, steel scallop shells installed on Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
beach. Hambling describes the piece as a conversation with the sea:
- "An important part of my concept is that at the centre of the sculpture, where the sound of the waves and the winds are focused, a visitor may sit and contemplate the mysterious power of the sea,"
The sculpture has caused some division amongst the local community with some complaining that the sculpture obstructs the view or is an eyesore that should be moved to Snape
Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings is part of Snape, Suffolk, U.K., best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival....
, whilst others say that it enhances the view and is a fitting commemoration of Britten that helps to attract tourists. In the first three months of 2004, the sculpture was twice vandalised by pouring paint over it and a poll in the local paper was held to decide whether it should be moved, although the result was 2,163 to 738 in favour of keeping the sculpture. The sculpture has been compared with Nissen hut
Nissen hut
A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated steel, a variant of which was used extensively during World War II.-Description:...
wreckage or a kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
mantelpiece ornament. Hambling did not herself make the sculpture: it was produced by a local foundry from a four-inch (102 mm) model supplied by the artist. This sculpture continues to attract controversy, vandalism and opposition from the local community, who seem to object more to where it has been sited than its visual appearance.
Hambling, who gave up smoking in 2004, was involved in the campaign against the total ban on smoking in public places in England
Smoking ban in England
A smoking ban in England and Wales, making it illegal to smoke in all enclosed public places and enclosed work places in England, came into force on 1 July 2007 as a consequence of the Health Act 2006...
which took effect on 1 July 2007. Speaking at a news conference at the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
on 7 February 2007, she said: "I wholeheartedly support the campaign against a ban on smoking
Smoking ban
Smoking bans are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations, which prohibit tobacco smoking in workplaces and/or other public spaces...
in public places. Just because I gave up at 59, other people may choose not to. There must be freedom of choice, something that is fast disappearing in this so-called free country."
Hambling was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.
External links
- A collection of newspaper articles discussing the local controversy concerning the Scallop reprinted by Art-Outside.com.
- Lynn Barber, A Life in Pictures, The Interview: Maggi Hambling, The Observer, 2 December 2007
- BBC Video Nation: Maggi Hambling & The Sea, 2009