 |
|
Still Life With Bread and Jug by Dennis Creffield
|
Still life with bread and jug.
"As an image, I made it as a student work in my last year at the Slade, c. 1961. In fact it was included in an exhibition at the University of Brighton organised by Julian Freeman, who used to have Colin Matthews' position looking after the gallery. The University mounted an exhibition, under Julian Freeman's auspices, of the history of the Slade, in which this painting was included in the gallery, when I was still teaching there, which must have been in the Seventies sometime." Dennis Creffield
| Artist: | Dennis Creffield | | Artwork type: | painting | | Material: | oil on board | | Measurements: | 920 x 1220 mm | | Technique: | traditional painting in oil on canvas | | Date: | 1961 | | Location: | The Aldrich Collection at the University of Brighton | | Culture: | English | | Rights owner: | Dennis Creffield | | Rights status: | UK HE use only | | Institution: | University of Brighton | | Notes: | This is for other people to describe artists do not generally talk about themselves in this way. I am also out of date - I would be identified as figurative as opposed to abstract but that's an argument that ceased some time ago. Presumably I would be broadly associated historically as a figurative painter.
Style /Period
I don't like to describe myself as anything.
In those days - a long time ago - there was something called 'figurative painting' and something called 'abstract painting'. All arguments at the time were whether you were one or the other and what sort of figurative painter you were.
The only distinguishing element which once upon a time was important but is no longer is that I was a student of a painter called David Bomberg, and for a time you could be described as someone who was a student of Bomberg. David Bomberg taught for a few years in London. The two most distinguished artists were Frank Arback and Leon Cossor. They were students of David Bomberg, and I was a student of David Bomberg. This is different from going to an art school - you went to study with a particular artist. Now you go to somewhere like the University of Brighton, and who teaches you is not all that important. If someone wanted to find out about the people or history of David Bomberg's teaching, that's the only interest -otherwise I am just another artist who paints and draws and tries to make a living as best as possible. It's an enormously important thing for me, but it's difficult talking about it to anyone under the age of 40, who wouldn't even know that once upon a time there was just painting and sculpture. Installation and so on were only there in early form as ways of working, and video didn't exist. All there was when I was a student in the 50s and 60s was painting and drawing and you either worked with the figure or did abstract work, i.e. non-figurative, but there were huge diversities within that. I was a student of Bomberg and others were students of Colstream, who taught a particular approach and style of drawing. I was at the Slade School from 1957 to 1961. That will place me -there really isn't anything outside that. I have just gone on working, painting, since then. I haven't started making installations - I'm rooted within that period - just after the war - the Fifties. I am very much part of history. I don't want to be simplified simply as someone else's student. | Related works
< back
|
|
