On a visit to London last week, I was keen to tick off a number of exhibitions that had been stacking up on my list. The one that made an immediate, and will leave a powerful, impression was the Lynette Yiadom-Boakye retrospective at Tate Britain.
I was instantly struck by her captivating painterly dialogue with art history, or rather, the history of painting. So many of her marks, gestures, colours, the quality of her brushwork seem to quote other great painters from the past - Goya, Sargent, Manet, Degas.
In the first room hangs an exquisite portrayal of a man in a sumptuous red cloak - it brought to mind John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the pioneering French gynaecologist, Samuel-Jean Pozzi. Sargent’s painting and his sitter were the subject of Julian Barnes’ forensic investigation in his book, The Man in the Red Coat, published in 2019. I can imagine the compelling and enigmatic subject of Yiadom-Boakye’s painting as a character in a novel. Perhaps the novel would be called ‘Any Number of Preoccupations' - the title of the painting.
Yiadom-Boakye’s titles reference fragments of novels, poetry, magazine articles - not the quirky references of Pop Art but more of a subtle layer of intrigue, mystery or equivalence. She regards her titles as integral to the painting, like a brushstroke, “a part of the painting, rather than a description of it.” A writer of poetry and prose, Yiadom-Boakye has said,
“I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about”
Her figures do not exist - which is hard to grasp as they convey such presence and striking individuality. They command both the picture space they inhabit but also our space, too, as we lean in to interpret a glance, gesture or expression. Usually, just larger than life-size but not imposingly so, her figures sit, lounge, stretch or stand, often lost in contemplation.
Each room in the exhibition has its own rhythm and energy. Works are arranged not by date but by vibe; people dance, chat, day dream. The artist was closely involved in the selection and arrangement of her works here and her choices make for great company.
In No Such Luxury, (2012), a beautiful woman sits at a table with a tea cup, conjuring up the lone diner in Automat by Edward Hopper.
In A Passion Like No Other, a young man gazes outward with the intense solitude of the vulnerable, misunderstood Pierrot in Watteaus’s Gilles, caught on the anxious borderline between performance and real life.
A woman leans on a table in Geranium Love Sonnet (2010), like a Degas laundress., lost in a private moment before commencing her next task.
As I left the exhibition space, which was hard to do
as Yiadom-Boakye's figures are so compelling as is the allure of her paint work, I walked across to the permanent collection. Here I was struck again by Yiadom-Boakye’s exciting sparring with historical art practice.
A striding man of means and influence, the Duke of Hamilton by Daniel Mytens (1623), vividly brought to mind the striking full-length figure I had just left behind in Yiadom-Boakye’s, Highriser (2009) - both men thoroughly inhabiting their pictorial habitats.
At the end of the exhibition, there is a display of Yiadom-Boakye’s reading list; books she has found revelatory or inspirational. These included work by Ted Hughes, James Baldwin, Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde.
I am in the process of writing a future talk on the fruitful relationship between the painted image and the written page so I will certainly be selecting some of Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings to explore and share.
The exhibition, Fly in League with the Night, runs at Tate Britain until 23 February 2023.
Image Credits:
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - Any Number of Preoccupations 2010, Dr. Kenneth Montague / The Wedge Collection,
John Singer Sargent - Dr Pozzi at Home 1881, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye -No Such Luxury 2012, Private Collection
Daniel Mytens - James, 1st Duke of Hamilton 1623, Tate
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - Highriser 2009, Private Collection
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