Gerald Ogilvie Laing (1936 – 2011) aka: Gerald Laing, British pop artist and sculptor attending the National Portrait Gallery, Press View. Gerald Laing standing in front of his painting, 'Astronaut 4' (1963) displayed at the NPG exhibition “Pop Art Portraits”. London, UK, 10th October 2007. photo:Richard Keith Wolff
Post script:
Gerald Laing (1936 – 2011) British artist perhaps best known as part of the first wave of British Pop Artists, starting from the early sixties in the New York art scene with American Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and so on. Gerald Laing created some iconic images. From around 1970 he abandoned this style of work, and became an accomplished sculptor and craftsman. However Laing was to go full cycle, reappraising his Pop Art style in the last years of his life, in which he created Pop Art with a brave new face. I went to a London exhibition of Laing's shortly after this retrospective, his later work was dripping in indignation, with his sights placed squarely on the Abu Ghraib atrocities and the Iraq invasion. Does a former British Army officer, which this artist was, give any slake to war criminals? Not at all! The artwork is uncompromisingly mocking, which makes the harshest pointer to what is so wrong. Laing grew up during World War II and would have had first hand experience about being bombed, this perhaps made him more acutely aware of the suffering bombing causes civilians! On a lighter note, Gerald Laing bought a print of this photograph of himself taken at the National Portrait Gallery press view, because he said with a chuckle “he likes his devilish expression.”
Date: 10/10/2007
Location: London, UK
Photographer: Richard Keith Wolff
