Gerald Laing, 'Sir Paul Getty K.B.E., 1932 - 2003', 1996
About the work
Overview
This bust was commissioned by the National Gallery to acknowledge Paul Getty’s £50 million donation to the institution. It sits inside the Portico Entrance and was designed to make a pair with Sir Francis Chantrey’s marble bust of 1836 depicting Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough, a Victorian politician, a promoter and patron of the arts, and a founding Trustee of the Gallery.
The sculptor, Gerald Laing, is best known for his work in bronze, made at the foundry he established at his home, Kinkell Castle, in the Scottish Highlands. After training at London’s St Martin’s School of Art, he spent the 1960s in New York, where he made his name first as a Pop Artist and then as a sculptor of minimal forms. Disillusioned, he returned to Britain and took up figurative art again, albeit continuing to experiment. Laing returned to Pop Art and painting in the early 2000s, producing a series of anti-war works focussing on the atrocities perpetrated at Abu Ghraib, and paintings of celebrities such as Amy Winehouse, Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Sir Paul Getty K.B.E., 1932 - 2003
- Artist
- Gerald Laing
- Artist dates
- 1936 - 2011
- Date made
- 1996
- Medium and support
- Bronze, plated with nickel
- Dimensions
- 62 × 46 × 30 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed; Dated and inscribed
- Acquisition credit
- Commissioned by the National Gallery in honour of Sir Paul Getty K.B.E., benefactor of the Gallery, 1997
- Inventory number
- H192
- Location
- Main Vestibule
- Collection
- Contextual Collection
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.