robert dukes

robert dukespaintings and drawings

11 November - 4 December 2015

Monday - Friday 10 - 5.30Saturday 11 - 2

Browse & Darby19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP

Tel: 020 7734 7984 Fax: 020 7851 6650email: art@browseanddarby.co.uk

www.browseanddarby.co.uk

Robert Dukes at 50

Interviewed by Andrew Lambirth

Landscape & Photography

AL: We’re looking at three different types of landscape. Can you tell me what they are?

RD: This one’s a landscape done in Normandy on a trip to Chateau Balleroy in 2008 with the Royal Drawing School, painted over three or four days looking across the stream at the back of the houses in Balleroy village (cat. no.2). The second one (cat. no.13) was done from a photograph. It’s in Cévennes in southern France, looking across a lake at a block of houses. The last one is a transcription of a Balthus painting of the courtyard of the chateau where he lived in the 1950s (cat. no.31).

AL: Is the photographic one done from a single photograph?

RD: Yes. It was very hot weather and we went to this lake to swim almost every afternoon. The houses are a long way away, a quarter of a mile across the lake, and at a certain time of day the way the light hit them looked incredible. I thought it looked like something I’d like to paint but I didn’t have my paints with me. So I tried to draw it and made two or three very quick drawings, but there was nowhere near enough information in the drawings to make a painting from them. So I thought I’d take photographs just in case, even though I never paint from photographs, and when I got back I made two paintings from the photograph, sitting with my easel in front of my computer. I was very surprised that I got anything out of it.

AL: Isn’t that what people say – how can you have enough information in a photograph to make a painting?

RD: Often the information in the photograph isn’t the information you want. The colours look wrong. Photographs aren’t like your experience of looking at things. I think one reason I could do this was because I was a long way away. Anything nearby in a photograph is incredibly distorted by a single camera lens. If you imagine you were standing at the side of the lake looking at this view, what’s in the painting would be a tiny part of your actual visual field.

AL: Surely the painting was informed by the experience of being there and swimming in the lake. You probably wouldn’t have been able to do it if someone had given you a photograph.

RD: That is exactly it. It was memory and the excitement of looking at it, of actually being there. Trying to memorize that, even though the photograph was hugely important.

AL: Did you use the drawings?

RD: Barely, but the drawing was important to get an idea of what the painting would be about.

AL: Tell me about the one you did from life, which curiously looks more abstract and a bit flatter.

RD: To get these dynamic gable shapes that bind the picture together across the rectangle, I was just trying to mix the right colours to stand for the forms. There would be no point in trying to fill in the gaps, it would be impossible to make up a colour to do that. It’s a painting and it has to run by its own rules.

AL: Let’s talk about the Balthus. Why did you pick that painting?

RD: Because it’s beautiful. I’ve done lots of Balthus transcriptions in the last ten years but I wanted to do something a bit bigger and more ambitious. I just wanted to paint it like a stage set. And this is why in a nutshell I wanted to paint it and paint more landscapes. I paint still-lives normally and they’re lumps. They’re usually one or two lumps, like one or two apples, in a bare space. Landscape is the opposite of that. This was like trying to paint a stage set or a big space that goes right to the edge of the canvas, rather than paint a single object in the middle of a space.

In any painting, even if it’s a single object painting, the whole surface has to be animated and that’s one of the reasons it’s hard to do single object paintings because they can just dominate the whole space and not work as a flat shape. But in a landscape the whole rectangle is animated right from the start. One reason for copying anybody, and especially someone as good as Balthus, is that you become more and more in awe of how good they are. Everything in the original links up – it’s terrifying. What’s so amazing is that it seems like a game of analogy and rapport of forms and yet it seems very true to what it actually looks like.

AL: Of the three different kinds of landscape, would you say that painting one kind was more satisfying than the others?

RD: I would much rather paint from observation – that’s by far the most exciting. I like making transcriptions of things very much, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d always be painting from observation. Painting from a photograph was a novelty but it’s not something I’d want to do a lot of. There’s only one other painting in the show done from a photograph – the rhinoceros.

Still Life, Measuring and Electric Light

AL: Is that one of the reasons you’re drawn to still-life, because of the state of emergency: the fruit is going to rot or the langoustine to stink?

RD: Not so much. Normally they last long enough to be painted, even though I take a long time. No, it’s more to do with the fact that you couldn’t mistake an apple for a quince, and yet each one is unique. And that they’re beautiful things to look at. It seems like the colour goes right through them, they give off so much colour sense. A lemon especially.

AL: Tell me about this idea of painting forms from the middle out.

RD: There was a thing I picked up on even at Grimsby, which came from Camberwell, which was not to try and draw a contour or an outline and then fill it in, but try to paint across a form. I want my paintings to have more plastic force, to be more realized, to be more there. I paint from the middle out because I don’t want to rely on an outline to define the form.

AL: Are you measuring less nowadays than you would have done once?

RD: Yes. Generally speaking, much less, but there are pictures when I still measure a lot. I liked what Patrick George said: he felt the measuring was becoming about measuring and not about what you were seeing. But I still use it, because I get stuck.

AL: And it’s a way out?

RD: Hopefully. Or it might be a way of completely re-configuring the whole picture.

AL: You always used to paint in electric light, and now you’re working more in natural light. Why?

RD: I painted in electric light from about 2000. I was working full-time in the National Gallery shop, so if I had a day off to paint I wanted eight or ten hours to work. And then I got used to it. People can be very odd about electric light and imply that it’s lesser in some way. Of course there is more variety in natural light, which is more beautiful, but I don’t think people can even necessarily tell which of my pictures were done in natural or electric light. People think electric light pictures are going to be yellow!

Anyway, recently, just for a change, I’ve tried natural light. It felt very strange – probably like painting in electric light feels to other painters. The colours looked really ugly on my palette, but now I’ve been painting more in natural light than electric light for about a year, the colours look normal.

AL: So one is not better than another?

RD: Ideally you would have a beautiful big naturally lit north-facing studio somewhere quiet (not on a council estate, like mine), but you make do with what you have. The main thing is that you paint, and don’t make excuses like ‘Oh the light’s gone’.

Drawing

AL: So what is a typical day?

RD: I get up about a quarter to eight and I draw from 9 o’clock to just after 10 o’clock, and if I don’t draw for at least an hour before I paint, I can’t do it. Then I start painting just after 10 and try to keep going till 6 o’clock. I think it’s best to try and find a consistency. So it becomes natural – this is what you do.

AL: How important is drawing? Is it still central to what you do?

RD: It’s enormously important. If I don’t draw a lot, the paintings don’t have what Robert Motherwell called ‘a precision of feeling’.

AL: I notice there are some paintings in your show of your dachshund.

RD: Yes – Miss Marple. Dachshunds are a very beautiful dog and she is the joy of our lives. She’s two now. Marple knows that when I’m in the studio she won’t get any attention, so she curls up on a cushion. Often she looks nicer than what I’m painting, so I shift the easel around and paint her.

AL: Who do you want to reach, as an ideal audience?

RD: I don’t think about a literal audience, and I don’t think about who’s going to like or not like this, but I would like to paint something that lasts.

(A full-length version of this interview can be found on the Browse & Darby website.)

13. Across the Lake, Cévennes, 2013

18 x 22 inches

5. Seven Quinces, 2011

7 ½ x 17 inches

28. Bowl of Quinces, 2014

12 x 12 ½ inches

17. After Veronese, Happy Union, 2013

8 x 8 inches

18. After Veronese, Scorn, 2014

8 x 8 inches

41. Apple, Knife, Plumbline, 2015

6 x 6 ½ inches

40. Two Apples, 2015

6 ¼ x 8 ½ inches

22. Marple on her Cushion I, 2014

4 ½ x 6 ¼ inches

23. Marple on her Cushion II, 2014

4 ¾ x 8 ½ inches

21. Beetle, 2014

5 x 7 ½ inches

24. Cadmium Orange, 2014

7 x 6 ½ inches

7. Cat Skull, 2012

6 x 7 inches

30. Rhinoceros, 2015

4 ½ x 8 inches

15. Two Green Quinces, 2013

6 ¼ x 9 inches

31. After Balthus, A Courtyard, 201514 ¼ x 17 ¾ inches

50. After Sickert, Ennui, 2012

11 x 8 inches

25. After Rembrandt, Susannah and the Elders, 2014

11 x 13 inches

ROBERT DUKES 1965 Born Hull, Yorkshire1981-84 Grimsby School of Art1984-88 Slade School of Art1988 Awarded the Boise Travel Scholarship SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2005, 08, 11, 15 Browse & Darby, London SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1998, 99 Cheltenham Drawing competition2000-03, 13 The Discerning Eye2000-08, 11, 12, 14 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition2006 National Portrait Gallery Award2006, 13 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Exhibition2006 Critic’s Choice Exhibition, Abergavenny, Wales2011, 13, 15 Borchard Self-Portrait Competition

Catalogue

Paintings – oil on board

1. Double Portrait, after Freud, “Patrick’s Picture”, 1988 8 x 9 inches

2. Balleroy Village, 2008 17 ½ x 23 ½ inches

3. Banana, 2009 6 ½ x 7 inches

4. Banana, 2011 8 ½ x 11 inches

5. Seven Quinces, 2011 7 ½ x 17 inches

6. Japonica Quinces, 2011 5 ¼ x 8 ¾ inches

7. Cat Skull, 2012 6 x 7 inches

8. Conker, 2012 8 ½ x 9 ¾ inches

9. Two Allsorts, 2012 3 ¼ x 5 ¾ inches

10. Three Allsorts, 2013 3 ¼ x 5 ¼ inches

11. After Freud, Portrait, 2013 5 x 4 inches

12. Beetle, 2013 5 ½ x 8 ¼ inches

13. Across the Lake, Cévennes, 2013 18 x 22 inches

14. After Mantegna, Two Rabbits, 2013 7 x 11 ½ inches

15. Two Green Quinces, 2013 6 ¼ x 9 inches

16. Quince Branch, 2013 9 x 12 inches

17. After Veronese, Happy Union, 2013 8 x 8 inches

18. After Veronese, Scorn, 2014 8 x 8 inches

19. After Braque, Still-life, 2014 5 x 8 inches

20. Marple asleep, 2014 5 x 7 inches

21. Beetle, 2014 5 x 7 ½ inches

22. Marple on her Cushion I, 2014 4 ½ x 6 ¼ inches

23. Marple on her Cushion II, 2014 4 ¾ x 8 ½ inches

24. Cadmium Orange, 2014 7 x 6 ½ inches

25. After Rembrandt, Susannah and the Elders, 2014 11 x 13 inches

26. Conker I, 2014 6 x 6 inches

27. Conker II, 2014 6 x 7 inches

28. Bowl of Quinces, 2014 12 x 12 ½ inches

29. Two Yellow Quinces, 2014 7 ¼ x 9 inches

30. Rhinoceros, 2015 4 ½ x 8 inches

31. After Balthus, A Courtyard, 2015 14 ¼ x 17 ¾ inches

32. Sea Shells, 2015 3 ½ x 6 ¼ inches

33. After Roger Fry, Iris Tree, 2015 4 ¾ x 6 inches

34. Apples on a Blue Jumper I, 2015 9 x 10 ½ inches

35. Apples on a Blue Jumper II, 2015 11 x 11 inches

36. Granny Smith, 2015 7 x 9 inches

37. Caravaggio, 2015 6 ½ x 6 inches

38. Lemon, 2015 5 x 6 ½ inches

39. After Delacroix, A Lion Hunt, 2015 30 x 39 inches

40. Two Apples, 2015 6 ¼ x 8 ½ inches

41. Apple, Knife, Plumbline, 2015 6 x 6 ½ inches

42. Self-Portrait at Fifty, 2015 8 x 7 ½ inches

43. Allsorts, 2015 3 ¼ x 5 ¾ inches

44. After Balthus, Thérèse, 2015 8 x 6 inches

45. Tamar Valley, effect of rain, 2015 6 x 7 inches

Drawings – pencil on paper (unless otherwise stated)

46. After Tintoretto, Venetian Magistrate, 1988 5 x 4 inches

47. A Henry Moore in Tate Britain, 2010 3 x 5 inches

48. After Domenichino, Martyrdom of St. Andrew, 2011 4 ½ x 6 inches

49. After Uglow, Head of a Girl, 2011 pencil and gouache , 4 x 5 inches

50. After Sickert, Ennui, 2012 11 x 8 inches

51. Shaving Mirror, 2012 pencil and gouache, 11 x 8 inches

52. Bathers, 2012 pencil and gouache, 6 x 8 inches

53. After Julien de Palme, Self Portrait, 2013 11 x 8 inches

54. Marple at Two Months, 2013 8 x 11 inches

55. Marple as a Puppy, 2013 8 x 11 inches

56. First drawing for Across the Lake, Cévennes, 2013 4 ½ x 8 inches

57. Heads after Degas, Ingres etc, 2013 8 x 11 inches

58. After Hogarth, Jack Broughton, 2014 5 x 4 ½ inches

59. After Moroni, 2014 8 x 11 inches

60. Will Stevens’ Church, 2014 9 ½ x 6 inches

61. Bethan at Sydney Close Studios, 2014 6 ½ x 4 inches

62. Marple Head Studies, 2014 8 x 11 inches

63. Marple at Two Years Old, 2015 8 x 11 inches

64. After Balthus, Heads, 2015 8 x 11 inches

65. After Balthus, Nudes, 2015 8 x 11 inches

66. After Balthus, Small Standing Nude, 2015 5 x 4 ½ inches

67. Euan’s Duck, 2015 5 ¼ x 4 inches

68. After Vuillard, Annette, 2015 pencil and gouache, 11 x 8 inches

Browse & Darby19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP