Gerald Laing

Gerald Ogilvie-Laing (11 February 1936 – 23 November 2011) was a British pop artist and sculptor.[1] He lived in the Scottish Highlands.[2]

Gerald Laing
Born
Gerald Ogilvie-Laing

(1936-02-11)11 February 1936
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Died23 November 2011(2011-11-23) (aged 75)
Kinkell, Scotland
EducationBerkhamsted School
Alma materRoyal Military Academy Sandhurst
Saint Martin's School of Art
OccupationArtist, sculptor
Spouse(s)
Jennifer Anne Redway
​
​
(m. 1962; div. 1967)​

Galina Vassilovna Golikova
​
​
(m. 1969; div. 1983)​

Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen
​
​
(m. 1988; his death 2011)​
Children5

Early life

Laing was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 11 February 1936, a son of Maj. and Mrs. Gerald Ogilvie-Laing[3] He grew up during World War II and experienced the Battle of Britain as young boy.

He was educated at Berkhamsted School, an independent school in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire,[4] and attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and served with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers as a lieutenant in Ireland and Germany. He soon realized that the military was not what he was looking for and attended Saint Martin's School of Art in London.[5]

At the beginning of the 1960s, while still at Saint Martin's, Laing was introduced to artists in New York City. He met Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Rosenquist and Robert Indiana.[6] After art school he moved there, and with his connections, his art career began to take off.[7]

Career

Laing's career took him from the avant-garde world of 1960s pop art, through minimalist sculpture, followed by representational sculpture and then back full circle to his pop art roots. He also taught sculpture at the University of New Mexico and at Columbia University in New York City.[8]

In 1993 the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh staged a retrospective exhibition of his work.[9]

In 2012 Sims Reed Gallery staged an exhibition of his prints and multiples, his most comprehensive show of work to date.

Laing did a series of anti-war paintings, based primarily on photographs from the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. These paintings were the beginning of his return to pop art. They were followed in 2004 by a series of Amy Winehouse paintings, as well as a painting of Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss.

On 19 February 2012 a bronze sculpture by Laing, Dreamer, was stolen from Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.[10]

In February 2014, Laing's Brigitte Bardot painting from 1963 work sold for £902,500 in an auction at Christie's in London, a record sum for the artist.[11]

Sims Reed Gallery represents the Estate of Gerald Laing.

Notable works
Fountain of Sabrina, Broad Quay, Bristol
  • Brigitte Bardot (1962) painting and subsequent screen prints including dragsters and the Baby Baby Wild Things series (late 1960s)
  • Callanish (1974) abstract steel sculpture for the campus of Strathclyde University to mimic the Callanish Stones
  • The Galina series including An American Girl (1977)
  • Sherlock Holmes (1991), Picardy Place, Edinburgh
  • Sir Charles Fraser, Scottish National Portrait Gallery (1991)
  • Axis Mundi (1995), Tanfield House, Edinburgh, Scotland
  • The Spirit of Rugby;- Scrum Half, Winger, Try Scorer, Kicker (1995), four statues outside of Twickenham Rugby Stadium, London[12]
  • Bank Station Dragons (1995), Bank tube station, London
  • Paul Getty II, National Gallery, London, 1996
  • Falcon Square (2001), Inverness, Scotland
  • New Paintings for Modern Times (2004–2009): a series of work drawn from the Gulf war and modern media
  • The Spirit of Rugby;- Line-Out (2010), sculpture group at Twickenham Rugby Stadium, London[12]

Personal life

Laing was married three times and was the father of five children.[7] In 1962, he married Jennifer Anne Redway, with whom he had one daughter. They divorced in 1967 and he married Galina Vassilovna Golikova, with whom he had two sons, in 1969.[4] They divorced in 1983 and in 1988, Laing married Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York by the Rev. C. Hugh Hildesley. Adaline, a graduate from the Madeira School, attended Sarah Lawrence College and was a daughter of former U.S. Representative Peter Frelinghuysen Jr. and the former Beatrice Sterling Procter, an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune.[13] Adaline, with whom he had two more sons, is the sister of Rodney Frelinghuysen, also a former U.S. Representative, and a granddaughter of the prominent New Jersey lawyer and banker Peter Hood Ballantine Frelinghuysen I.[8]

In 1968, Laing and his second wife found Kinkell Castle in the Black Isle of Ross and Cromarty,[14] "a Z-plan stronghold that was the former seat of the clan Mackenzie, ruinous and in the hands of local farmer Angus MacDonald. Gerald paid £5,000 for it and spent the remainder of his life nurturing it into a family home, studio and workshop."[15]

Laing died on 23 November 2011 at his home, Kinkell Castle.[7] His son Farquhar (b. 1970), the elder son from Gerald's second marriage, is the founder and director of the Black Isle Bronze foundry, "one of Europe's foremost bronze caster" and another son, Sam Ogilvie, owns Ogilvie Design Studio,[15] which designs bespoke sculptural furniture and does commercial interior design work.[16]

References
  1. "Pop artist and sculptor Gerald Laing dies aged 75". BBC. 23 November 2011. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  2. "Gerald Laing | Gerald Laing, who has died aged 75, loomed large in the British Pop Art movement, having helped to define the 1960s with huge canvases based on newspaper photographs of famous models, astronauts and film stars – his image of Brigitte Bardot, her face framed by a roundel, is one of his most famous works". The Daily Telegraph. London. 25 November 2011.
  3. "Gerald Laing". Globe. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  4. The International Who's Who, 1991–92. Europa Publications. 1991. p. 913. ISBN 978-0-946653-70-6. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  5. Randall, Lee (19 April 2010). "Interview: Gerald Laing, artist". The Scotsman. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  6. "Exhibition Archive 1993". Fruitmarket. Archived from the original on 23 December 2010. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  7. Dalyell, Tam (25 November 2011). "Gerald Laing: Artist whose work encompassed Sixties Pop Art and". The Independent. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  8. "Adaline Frelinghuysen Is Married to Sculptor". The New York Times. 9 January 1988. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  9. "Exhibition Archive 1993". Fruitmarket. Archived from the original on 23 December 2010. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  10. "Gerald Laing sculpture stolen from Kelvingrove Museum". BBC News. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
  11. "Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction: Brigitte Bardot". Christie's. 2014. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  12. Ian Hewitt (20 September 2019). "The spirit of rugby: sculptures at Twickenham Stadium's World Rugby Museum". Art UK. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  13. Fried, Joseph P. (23 May 2011). "Peter Frelinghuysen Jr., 95, Longtime N.J. Congressman, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  14. Judah, Hettie (20 September 2016). "Inside a Pop Artist's Castle – and His Inspiration – in the Scottish Highlands". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  15. Fairbairn, Charlotte (2018). "A medieval Highland castle and foundry of pop artist Gerald Laing, kept alive by his son". House & Garden. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  16. "Sam Ogilvie". samogilvie.co.uk. Retrieved 22 September 2020.

External sources
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