Tate curator Elena Crippa on the London School exhibition

At the opening of the exhibition “Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and the School of London,” I met with Elena Krippa, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Tate Gallery, who spoke about the School of London and the new exhibition in Moscow.

The term "London School" was coined by the artist R. B. Kitai in 1976 during the exhibition Human Clay at the Hayward Gallery in London to refer to a number of artists based in the capital whose focus was the human figure and the reinterpretation of the nude body. The term was applied by R. B. Kitai to a group of six artists: Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud and Michael Andrews.

Did the London School have a single manifesto and common ideas, like the associations of the past such as, for example, the Wanderers in Russia? Why, in an era of dominance of abstract and conceptual art, did the London School return to figurative art?

The group's artists, also their teachers David Bomberg and William Coldstream, wanted to regain a sense of reality because abstraction had gone too far and become too "subjective." They wanted to draw attention to the situations and individuals that surrounded them in real life. Bomberg and Coldstream began to paint from life. The group's artists painted friends and relatives, as well as city and natural landscapes, and the places in which they lived. Reality fascinated artists as a result of the post-war crisis of existentialism.

Among them, Francis Bacon became a leading figure who captured in his work the energy and struggle of human existence. I would say that all these artists and the ensemble of the exhibition itself are closely connected with the historical moment with strength, a feeling that reacts to the seriousness of the wounds received, the desire to be an integral part of reality, to make one feel and recreate it in the deepest way. For example, in the film “Wedding” by R. B. Kitay, one can feel the desire to overcome the reality and hardships of life.

Each London School artist developed his own artistic style. They were united by the desire to write what was closely related to their personal lives and experiences, and not just write, but recreate it, giving the objects a sense of physical presence. The methods by which results were achieved were individual for each artist.

Could you tell us about the manner and style of each master?

For example, “To the Workshops” by Frank Auerbach (1990-1991) represents an example of the structure, monumentality and some dramatic nature of the artistic image inherent in the master’s work. When studying this picture, you feel the material from which the objects in the image (buildings) are made.

On the contrary, the leitmotif of Leon Kossoff's paintings is movement. Kossoff always used very light, bright and shining colors combined with an energetic brushwork. Several London School artists used the impasto technique. But all the masters had a different style of writing and developed their own style. They painted various image objects that surrounded them.

How did the London School artists view classical art and the Old Masters?

In the painting by R.B. Kitay one can recognize Picasso, Cezanne, and Chagall. China said that when he wrote "The Wedding," he was thinking about Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." Here the human body exudes vital energy. Francis Bacon also began painting his grotesque figures after seeing Picasso's work from 1919-1921. All these forms are very conventional.

The influence of Goya can be seen in Paula Regu's work, especially in Dance (1988). You also feel the influence of Rembrandt in many of the portraits.

You may be familiar with the figure of the Russian artist David Burlyak. Some of his work reminded me of the work of Francis Bacon. Do you think Bacon could have known David Burlyak?

This is a good question, but we don't know anything about this connection. Bacon's only Russian source of inspiration was the work of Sergei Eisenstein, whose films greatly influenced Bacon. Burlyak and Bacon could have been connected by knowledge of Picasso's works. It is possible that they had mutual friends.

From March 5 to May 19, 2019, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin in collaboration with Tate (London) presents the exhibition “Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and the London School”. For the first time, Russian viewers will have the opportunity to get acquainted with a unique and most significant chapter in the history of modern British art, associated with the use of figurative painting by artists as a means of expressing deeply personal experiences of life. The exhibition features 80 paintings and graphic works from the Tate collection. The general sponsor of the exhibition was VTB Bank.