about face

Teachers Resource

© LS Lowry Head of a Man 1938, The Lowry Collection, Salford

The Rugby Collection is a renowned collection of 20th century and contemporary British art. The collection contains over 200 artworks in a variety of media from painting and prints to drawing and video, including works by L. S. Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Paula Rego and Graham Sutherland. Started in 1946 by Rugby Borough Council, the collection has been housed at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum since it opened in 2000. The gallery continues to collect works by British artists of ‘promise and renown’ supplemented by bequests and gifts from organisations such as the Contemporary Art Society and the Art Fund.

Each year the Rugby Collection is curated around a different theme and this year’s theme is portraiture, as part of the 2018 temporary exhibitions programme which explores ideas around ‘People and Place’. With this exhibition we hope to answer some to the questions visitors ask about the artists represented in the collection. What made them tick? How were they inspired? What was their childhood like?

About Face is split into three sections ‘A Face behind the Name’ featuring self-portraits of artists within the Rugby Collection, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum Portraits’ and ‘Inside Stories’ featuring figurative works that have a narrative.

To help us tell the stories of our artists we have borrowed works from the National Portrait Gallery and The Lowry with the help and support of the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund. The loans which are all self-portraits, include Lucian Freud, Eduardo Paolozzi and L S Lowry. These loans not only allow our visitors to have wider access to these National collections, which would normally only be seen in large city galleries, but also it enables us to develop the Rugby Collection further, display it in new ways and gather new research. It is hoped that this will be something we can further develop in the future.

Introduction

© Estate of Edward Le Bas

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How to use this guide

This guide has been designed for educators to help their students explore the gallery, but can also be taken back to school and used in the classroom.

What is portraiture?

Evidence of portraiture as a genre can be seen as early as Ancient Egyptian wall paintings of gods and pharaohs. Portraits were means to describe not only physical features but more importantly, power and status. Ancient Greek portraiture existed mostly in its sculpted form. The Romans followed a similar tradition, borrowing motifs from Ancient Egypt and Greece and developing a flair for portrait busts of key political and cultural personalities.

The 19th and 20th Century are characterised by an assortment of art movements from the Pre-Raphaelites to Pre-Realism to Impressionism to Cubism. During this time portraits broadened the field of subjects to include the middle class and also the immediate circles of artists, as well as anonymous models. Walter Sickert explored depictions of everyday life rather than the conventions of portraiture, taking inspiration from his French Impressionist contemporaries. In the mid-20th century, celebrity portraits came to the fore with Pop Art, a genre that allowed artists like Richard Hamilton to comment on popular culture and the economic value of art. From the 1960s onwards, portrait photography takes over from painted portraiture, due to its immediacy, and the ability to develop many different trends. The biggest trend to hit the digital world of photography is the ‘Selfie’.

Where do we see pictures of people/ faces in everyday life?

• The Queen on stamps, coins, bank notes

• Your grandmas wedding photograph on the mantel piece

• Models on advertising posters, leaflets, books, magazines, packaging

• Selfies on snapchat

© Linda Ingham, Easter Self Portrait with Narcissi, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Rugby Borough Council

Discussion points whilst exploring the exhibition

• Discuss likes or dislikes and what the images reveal about each individual.

• Discuss what techniques or strategies have been used – pose, expression, location or props.

• Invite students to individually make a list of characteristics that they would want a portrait to convey.

• Look at a variety of source material to see the range of poses, postures and gestures – e.g. personal portraits, family photos, magazines, and popular photo sharing sites.

• Identify gestures that are commonly used and some that are more unusual.

• Does gender, age, location seem to influence the use of certain poses or gestures?

• Discuss their potential meaning both in and outside of their original context – what would happen if those poses and gestures were used by someone else or somewhere else?

• Imitate the poses and gestures and take photographs – situate them in different contexts and discuss how it changes their meaning.

• Consider whose portrait they would most like to paint and how they would portray them.

• What would you ask them about themselves? For example, people who inspire you, family members or your friends?

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All about....L S LowryL S Lowry was born in Stretford, Lancashire. He was a solitary child with no academic aptitude. His mother did not appreciate his talent as an artist and his father, though affectionate, was a quiet man who preferred to remain in the background of family life. After spending his early years in leafy Rusholme, Manchester, the family moved in 1909 to the industrial town of Pendlebury. Here the landscape was filled with textile mills and factory chimneys.

At first, Lowry’s oil paintings were impressionistic in style and very dark, but after taking advice from D. B. Taylor of the Manchester Guardian, he moved away from darker tones and towards a lighter palette. His palette would remain the same throughout his artistic career; ochre, blue, black, white and red sometimes mixed, but often separated. His backgrounds became white and he created what has now become a distinctive style of urban and industrial landscapes with people, often referred to as ‘matchstick men’ Lowry ’s aim was to record the Industrial North.

Through his rent collecting job he was able to absorb the images of everyday life, using the industrial landscape as a backdrop for the hustle and bustle of human activity. Simplistic in style, Lowry did not intend to produce a photographic likeness. There is a distinct lack of shadows in his work, which he decided to leave out so as not to detract from the artwork.

He painted Head of a Man (with Red Eyes), a long considered imaginary painting, but actually a disturbing and introverted self-analysis. Lowry confessed that “It was really an emotional self-portrait. It was a way of letting off some steam.” At the time Lowry’s mother lay dying, the only person that mattered to him. He had nursed her for six years and at the very moment when his proudest achievement was in reach, she was slipping away from him.

The shaggy hair and sunken skin show signs of neglect and the stress and tension over the forehead is evident from the deeply carved eyebrows. It is however the eyes that draws the viewer in, haunting and clearly showing a man that has lost his reason to exist.

© The Estate of L.S. Lowry. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2018

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All about....Lubaina Himid MBEHimid was a key influencer in the 1980s as one of the first artists involved in the Black Art Movement and continues to create activist art which is shown in galleries in Britain, as well as worldwide. Lubaina Himid was born in Zanzibar in 1954 and moved to London in the 1960s.

She curated and organised several exhibitions which furthered the careers of black women in the arts. Whilst Himid was still studying the ‘First National Black Art Convention’ was held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, organised by the BLK Art Group. It was a call for Black artists and students to join together to discuss the form, functioning and future of Black Art. Himid uses a range of materials in her work, which explores themes around Black identity, Black history and in particular the history of the transatlantic slave trade, media representation of celebrity, and migration. Himid is interested in the visible and the invisible and making the invisible visible.

The two pieces on display here Man in Paper Drawer and Man in Pencil Drawer suggest the act of revealing something. The drawer carries with it a performative action of bringing something into the field of the visible. It could perhaps also refer to an act of naming, filing and archiving, archiving histories and particularly Black histories.

More recently Himid has been working with museum collections where she has artistically questioned the history and representation of African migration. She has looked at the role that museums play with regard to discussion of cultural history. Himid was made an MBE in June 2010 for “services to Black women’s art” and in 2017 she won the Turner Prize.

© Lubaina Himid courtesy of Hollybush Gardens

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Looking at Portraits

• What is the person wearing?

Does this tell you anything about them?

• Do the objects in the portrait tell you anything about the person?

• How is colour used in the painting?

What feeling or effect does colour help to create?

• Describe the person’s face and expression. How do you think they were feeling?

How does each portrait make you feel about the person?

• Does it have more than one person in the image?

What happens when it includes a physical interaction?

• Are they looking at the viewer or looking away?

What impact does this have on the image?

Ask each student to select a portrait.

Portrait planning• Think about who you would like to paint

in your portrait. It might be someone that inspires you, a family member, teacher, friend or a self-portrait. Make some notes of your ideas below and pick your favourite.

• Now think about the person in detail - what do they look like and what are their features like? Consider face shape, eyes, nose, mouth and hair.

• What setting or background will they be in and why? It might be at home in their favourite chair, at school, out in the countryside or on holiday.

• What objects will you have in your portrait and why? Think about what hobbies the person has, what sort of food they like, or even if they have pets.

• What will they be wearing and why? Is there an outfit or a colour that they like the most?

• Sketch your portrait on some plain paper first. For this first sketch you can label the main objects, colours and ideas to help explain your work.

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© Winston Branch, West Indian, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Rugby Borough Council

© Faye Claridge, To the Spirit of Mary Neal, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Rugby Borough Council

What You Need:

Chalk in several colours

A washable, smooth, outdoor surface

A bit of early morning or later afternoon summer sun

What You Do:

• Find your canvas. Make sure you settle in a spot that isn’t shady already; you’ll need some good sunlight to make sharp shadows. How might a surface affect the outcome?

• Explore position and movements and how these affect the shadow. Talk about where the sun is in relation to where you are standing, and discuss how a shadow is formed.

© John Davies, courtesy Marlborough Fine

• Once you have found your position that makes an excellent shadow, have your partner hold still as you trace it with chalk. Once you’re finished, switch roles.

• Add details to one another’s shadows. Go ahead and get silly with this part - the more details the better. Add a top hat, a superman cape, or a pink tiara to your outlines. The crazier the better.

• Still up for some more shadow play? People make great shadows, but don’t forget about trees, toys anything. Let your student take the lead as you search for other subjects to trace. This could be done in the classroom by setting up a light source such as an overhead projector.

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Shadow DrawingFind the artwork ‘Man with his Shadow’ by John Davies.

Known for his sculptures, Davies wanted his pieces to look like the human figure rather than the abstract pieces that were fashionable at the time. He wanted to show people as people once saying about his self-portrait he wanted to “to make a figure, not like a piece of sculpture, more like a person.... I wanted my sculpture to be more like life in the street.”

In pairs, explore shadow and light and create your own shadow drawings.

Textured Clay Portraits A

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Find the artwork by Leon Kossoff called Head of Father.

© The Artist, Courtesy of Annely Juda Fine Art

Create a portrait using a clay tile. Shape and work the clay to create features and contours, can you use the textures to reflect emotions such as anger, upset and pain?

What You Need:

Clay

Pencil and board

A spatula – to ease removal of your portrait from the board

A range of objects such as rolling pins, knives, wire, rulers and different shaped items that can be cut around.

Domestic items such as bottle tops, cutlery, shells and buttons, nuts and bolts, to textured materials like sandpaper, lace, leaves etc.

What You Do:

• Manipulate and model the clay into a rectangle tile shape.

• Lightly mark your portrait onto the surface.

• Use a range of materials to make marks and manipulate the clay to create features. Try not to ‘add’ additional clay, push and mould what you have. Think about the shapes and angles you create and how you can get across the emotions of the person.

• To extend this you create a 3D sculpture? Or paint them. Discuss the impact colour can have on a piece of art. Remember if you wish to wall hang these, create a hole at the top.

Through his brushwork his portraits frequently showed the character and upset of the person in the painting, inviting in the viewer to find out more. Kossoff would scrape the paint off the board with a knife before layering it back on several times daily. The paint’s constant reworking, its constant decay and regeneration, mirrors the changes undergone by the subjects that he has portrayed.

Portrait - step by step

1. Draw an egg shape (but remember not all faces are egg shaped!)

2. Draw a centre line vertically right through the centre of the egg. This ensures that you line up the nose, mouth and eyes correctly.

Then draw a horizontal line ½ way down the egg. This is where the eyes and top of the ears will go.

3. ½ way between the eye line and the chin draw a 2nd horizontal line. This is where the bottom of the nose and ears will go.

4. 1/3 of the way down from the nose draw a 3rd horizontal line. This is where the mouth will go.

5. Draw in the eyes with the corners on the line. To ensure the eyes are the correct size you should be able to fit 5 equal eye widths across the head.

6. Draw the nose, following the corner of the eyes down. The nose should fit on the middle line.

7. Draw in the mouth with the line dividing the 2 lips. As a width guide, use the centre of each eye as a guide draw two fiat lines down to the lip line.

8. Draw in the ears and the hairline. the ears should fit snugly between the eye and nose lines.

9. Draw the neck by drawing a vertical line from the outer corner of the eye on each side to achieve the correct width.

10. Notice the hair grows out away from the head, appearing as an indent where the hair is parted. Notice the hair on top of the head is lighter where it reflects the light and darker underneath. This is achieved through using many or few lines accordingly.

Rugby Art Gallery and Museum’s education programme intends to inspire, excite, encourage and challenge students to understand its collections.

We support a range of areas within the curriculum including art and design, history, citizenship, drama and literature. We also provide many resources for teachers including education packs and education spaces. Visit our websites learning page for the latest resources.

For information about future workshops and opportunities please contact Sally Godden on 017888 533224/ sally.godden@rugby.gov.uk

Rugby Art Gallery and MuseumLittle Elborow StreetRugbyCV21 3BZ

www.ragm.org.uk

@rugbygallery

Rugby Art Gallery and Museum

Rugby Art Gallery and Museum