Cecily Brown

Cecily Brown (born 1969[1]) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of painters, from Francisco de Goya, Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon[2] and Joan Mitchell, to Old Masters like Rubens and Poussin, yet her works also present a distinctly female viewpoint.[3][4] Brown lives and works in New York City.[5][6]

Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown, 2012
Born1969
London, England, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
EducationEpsom School of Art (1987)
Morley College (1987–89)
Alma materSlade School of Art (1993)
StyleFigurative art
Abstract art
Spouse(s)Nicolai Ouroussoff

Personal life

Brown was born and raised in England before moving to New York City in 1994. Prior to moving to New York city, Brown resided in New York as an exchange student from the Slade School of Art in 1992. She is the daughter of novelist Shena Mackay and art critic David Sylvester.[7] From the age of three Brown wanted to be an artist; she was supported in this ambition by her family, notably by her grandmother and two of her uncles who were also artists.[8] Brown is married to architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff; they have one daughter, Celeste.[9]

Since 2014, Brown has been serving on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA).[10]

Education

Brown earned a B-TEC Diploma in Art and Design from the Epsom School of Art, Surrey, England (1985–87) (now the University for the Creative Arts), took drawing and printmaking classes at Morley College, London (1987–89), and received a BA degree in Fine Arts from the Slade School of Art, London (1989–93).[11] During her studies she worked as a waitress and, later, in an animation studio. In addition to painting, Brown also studied printmaking and draftsmanship. She earned First Class Honours at the Slade and was the first-prize recipient in the National Competition for British Art Students.[2]

Career

Brown left London to sign on to the Gagosian Gallery in New York City. She became known to the art world in the late 1990s through an exhibition of abstracted paintings of rabbits. The rabbits in the works are frolicking in bacchanalian landscapes.[12] In 1995, the art world took notice of her work when she displayed Four Letter Heaven at the Telluride Film Festival; it was shown in the United States as well as Europe.[13] The films consist of sexual and pornographic themes, which she explores in the majority of her work.[13] Brown maintained a studio in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan,[5] then in 2011, she worked from a studio at a former office near Union Square. She is now represented by Paula Cooper Gallery in New York.

Work

Painting

Brown uses drawing as a prerequisite to guide her work. Through the use of repetition, Brown captures images that both attract and confound her.  Though her drawings are not as exhibited as her paintings, both art mediums contain similar aspects in showcasing her erotic view of art through subject matter. Brown states, “I want to make forms that are either just dissolving or in the process of just becoming something and to play with the relationship between the eye and the brain.”[12]

Brown's paintings combine figuration and utter abstraction while exploring the power relationship between male and female. Expanding the tradition of abstract expressionism, she has become known for a painting style suggestive of abstract and abstract expressionist painters such as Willem de Kooning and Oskar Kokoschka.[14] Brown has minimal anxiety about the art media she uses; she said in an interview with Lari Pittman that "As someone who works with traditional materials, I've always had little anxiety that the medium isn't contemporary enough, that the work could have been made at almost any time." In her interview with Pittman she discussed how she defines 'sexy' and 'sexual' in her work: "I suppose you could say that the sexual is in every painting, whether there is an overt subject or not. The tension within the painting, whatever the subject, is the desired outcome. The sexy would be the girl's lipstick smile or the shoe--the physical object from the three-dimensional world placed within the painting." When she begins a painting, she generally doesn't have an exact idea of what she is trying to achieve, but she lets the final painting reveal itself as she works.[15] Whilst painting she likes to let the paintings develop and change drastically, because she believes the surprise makes her work more interesting.[16] Brown says, "All the paintings I'm working on have more or less the same impetus; the same thoughts are driving them. I like there to be an argument within a painting."[17] Sexuality and attraction are important themes in her work, which she explores through semi-figurative and abstract means.[14] The way she handles paint within her work, becomes the subject matter itself by engulfing her figures within the paint or to use it to add a sense of humor to her sexual imagery.[13] The main characteristic of Brown’s paintings is her use of motion, expressive mark-making and many mixtures of color throughout her pieces. She also constantly changes palettes, so her work consistently shifts over time.[17] Her paintings also recall the works of Philip Guston and the Bay Area Figurative School of the 1950s and 1960s. Brown often titles her paintings after classic Hollywood films and musicals, such as The Pyjama Game, The Bedtime Story and The Fugitive Kind. Brown said in an interview that "One of the main things I would like my work to do is to reveal itself slowly, continuously and for you never to feel that you’re really finished looking at something." She also said in another interview that she asks herself as she works, "How can I paint the equivalent of what it’s like to move through space, to move through the world, to be in a room, in a park, on the street?" [17] In 2013, Brown based a series of paintings on a photograph of a large group of nude women that appeared on the British release of a 1968 Jimi Hendrix album Electric Ladyland.[14]

The sexuality and eroticism of Brown's depictions of expressive figures and nudes are echoed in rich colours, luscious paint handling, and animated brushwork; her work combines representational and abstract elements. In her interview with Lari Pittman she discussed how she defines 'sexy' and 'sexual' in her work. Brown said, "I suppose you could say that the sexual is in every painting, whether there is an overt subject or not. The tension within the painting, whatever the subject, is the desired outcome. The sexy would be the girl's lipstick smile or the shoe--the physical object from the three-dimensional world placed within the painting."[15] Her tactile technique stands out among contemporaries and links her to the art movement Abstract Expressionism. However, self-conscious of her connection with artists such as Willem de Kooning and Lucian Freud, Brown often interjects fresh humor or irony by titling her paintings after famous musicals and films. She has been grouped with leading female contemporary painters, including Charline von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries, Laura Owens, Jutta Koether, Amy Sillman, and Emily Sundblad.[18]

Cecily Brown works using a non-linear approach. Brown experiments with this approach by working with multiple canvases at one time. Working in large groups allows Brown to explore new compositional ideas while continually being spontaneous. Brown describes her process as "organic".[19] She often spends multiple days on works, and will work on up to 20 works at a time, allowing layers of paint to dry between applications.[20]

Some of her work includes:

  • Sky Towers and Bridal Bowers, oil on linen, 65 in x 43 in, 2016[21]
  • Those are pearls that were his eyes, oil on aluminum, 43 in x 53 in, 2016[21]
  • Be Nice to the Big Blue Sea, oil on linen, 109 in x 107 in, 2012[21]
  • The Green, Green Grass of Home, oil on linen, 97 in x 151 in, 2010[21]
  • Untitled (The Beautiful and Damned), oil on linen, 109 in x 171 in, 2013[21]
  • Luck Just Kissed You Hello, oil on linen, 67 in x 65 in, 2013[21]
  • Footsie, lithograph in 10 colours on Somerset textured white paper, 43 ¾ in x 33 ½ in, 2000, Edition of 33[21]
  • Jimmy Jimmy, oil on linen, 65 in x 67 in, 2014[21]
  • Untitled (Paradise), monotype in watercolor, pencil and pastel on Lanaquarelle paper, 47 ½ in 71 ¾ in, 2015[21]
  • Figures in a Landscape 1, oil on linen, 90 in x 100 in, 2001[21]
  • The Sleep Around and the Lost and Found, oil on canvas, 97 in x 103 in, 2014[21]
  • Is it nice in you snowstorm?, oil on linen, 17 in 12 ½ in, 2014[21]
  • The Young and the Restless, oil on linen, 115 in x 109 in, 2014[21]
  • We Think the Same Things at the Same Time, oil on canvas, 43 in x 65 in, 2014[21]
  • Combing the Hair (Outside), oil on canvas, 83 in x 67 in, 2014[21]
  • Stuck in the Middle With You, oil on linen, 43 in x 31 in, 2015[21]
  • Color Etching with Brick Wall, 7-color etching with aquatint, 2003, Editions 5 PPs, 1 BAT, 4 HCs of 28 + 4AP[21]
  • Skulldiver 3 (Flightmask), oil on linen, 85 in x 89 in, 2006[21]
  • Memento Mori 1, oil on linen, 97 in x 103 in, 2006–2008[21]

Other works

In 1997, Brown created Untitled, a permanent, site-specific installation for the group exhibition Vertical Paintings at P.S. 1.[22]

To see more paintings by Brown click here[23]

In the media

In the February 2000 edition of Vanity Fair, Brown, along with fellow artists Inka Essenhigh, John Currin and others, appeared in full-color photographs taken by Todd Eberle. A photograph that appeared in The New Yorker made showed Brown from the back as she stood, cigarette in hand, studying one of her paintings.[24]

Brown presided in 2004, along with other artists such as Laura Owens and Elizabeth Peyton, over a Democratic Party fund-raising event, Art Works for Hard Money, in Los Angeles.[25]

Critical reception

Brown has received a lot of critical attention for powerful, athletically-sized canvases and bold brushwork. The assertiveness of her paintings has often been compared to Abstract Expressionist works which, during their time, were linked to a fierce masculinity. As a female artist working in this vein, Brown's works have been seen as confronting both this tradition and gendered assumptions about art.

However, some recent critics have taken a different stance. Roberta Smith, in The New York Times, called a Gagosian exhibition it reviewed in 2000 "lackluster" and suggested that Brown's "career is ahead of her artistic development."[26] In a 2011 review for The Guardian, art critic Adrian Searle rejected the dynamic and assertive surfaces of Brown's art and wrote: "What's really missing in her art is character, and for all the hectic painting, a sense of necessity." Likewise, in 2013, Leah Ollman wrote a review of a Gagosian Gallery show for The LA Times, in which she observed: "Instead of powerful and passionate, her voice comes across as detached. The volume is turned up, but the verve is on low."[27]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions include:[28]

Cecily Brown has been represented by numerous galleries across the world.

Her work has appeared at the Whitney Biennial 2004 in New York,[36] The Triumph of Painting at the Saatchi Gallery, London and "Greater New York" at P.S. 1, New York.

Group shows include:[21]

  • Cecily Brown has been a part of numerous group shows at the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, Galerie Maximillian, Aspen, Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.[21]

Art fairs include:[21]

  • Her work has been shown at art fairs around the world at the Armory Show in New York, Paula Cooper Gallery at FOG Design+Art in San Francisco, Art Basel in Miami Beach, IFPDA Print Fair in New York, Contemporary Fine Arts in Miami Beach, Art Basel in Hong Kong, and Contemporary Fine Arts at Frieze London.[21]

Collections

Brown's work has attracted the attention of private art collectors including Elton John and Michael Ovitz. Her paintings are in the permanent collections of important museums and institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Tate Modern, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the Des Moines Art Center.[6]

Art market

Brown is represented by Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin. Between 2000 and 2015, she was also represented by the Gagosian Gallery.[37] She previously showed with Deitch Projects.[38] Cecily set an early auction record when her oil painting Sick Leaves sold for 2.2 million dollars at a Christie's auction in March 2017.[39] Shortly after, Suddenly Last Summer (1999), originally estimated at $1.8 to $2.5 million, fetched $6.8 million at a 2018 Sotheby's auction in New York.[40]

Further reading
  • Dore Ashton, Cecily Brown, Rizzoli Press. 11 November 2008. ISBN 978-0847830923
  • Jason Rosenfeld, "Interview with Cecily Brown," The Brooklyn Rail, December 2017/January 2018.

References
  1. Phaidon Editors (2019). Great women artists. Phaidon Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0714878775.
  2. Scott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium, 31. Munich: Prestel. ISBN 978-3-7913-4759-2.
  3. "Cecily Brown". Artspace.
  4. Holzwarth, Hans W. (2009). 100 Contemporary Artists A-Z (Taschen's 25th anniversary special ed.). Köln: Taschen. p. 74. ISBN 978-3-8365-1490-3.
  5. Karen Wright (29 November 2013), In the studio: Cecily Brown, Painter The Independent.
  6. "Cecily Brown's First Ever Solo Exhibition in the Netherlands at GEM Museum of Contemporary Art". Artdaily.org. 31 December 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  7. http://www.artcritical.com/DavidCohen/SUN89.htm review. Retrieved 1 June 2007
  8. Enright, Robert (February 2005). "Paint Whisperer: An Interview with Cecily Brown". Border Crossings. 24 (1): 36–49. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
  9. Langmuir, Molly (12 November 2014). "THE 12 MOST DARING, UNEXPECTED, AND EXCITING WOMEN IN ART NOW". Elle. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  10. Foundation for Contemporary Arts Announces 2014 John Cage Award Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), press release of 15 January 2014.
  11. "Cecily Brown". Blouin ArtInfo. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  12. Cecily Brown; Claire Gilman; David Salle (2016). Cecily Brown - Rehearsal. ISBN 9780942324990. OCLC 975241389.
  13. Grant, Catherine M. (2018). "Brown, Cecily". Oxford Art Online. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T096729.
  14. Small, Rachel (March 2015). "CECILY BROWN SHOWS HER WOMEN UPTOWN". Interview. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  15. Rolf Lauter (19 August 2014), Cecily Brown & Rolf Lauter: Interview, KUNSTHALLE MANNHEIM 2005, retrieved 11 March 2017
  16. Louisiana Channel (3 November 2015), Cecily Brown Interview: Take No Prisoners, retrieved 11 March 2017
  17. Brown, Cecily (2003). Cecily Brown. Gagosian Gallery. ISBN 1880154900. OCLC 53164963.
  18. Diane Solway (19 August 2013), Charline von Heyl: In the Abstract W.
  19. Lewis, Perri (20 September 2009). "Cecily Brown: I take things too far when painting". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  20. Wright, Karen (29 November 2013). "In the studio: Cecily Brown, Painter". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  21. "Cecily Brown – 98 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy". artsy.net. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  22. Cecily Brown P.S. 1, New York.
  23. "Selected Works".
  24. Roberta Smith (5 July 2000), Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman; Glossy Images That Both Mimic and Mock Male Sexuaility The New York Times.
  25. Alex Williams (4 July 2004), Cutting Edge In the Arts Now Is Joining a PAC The New York Times.
  26. Smith, Roberta (21 January 2000). "ART IN REVIEW; Cecily Brown". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  27. Ollman, Leah (26 September 2013). "Review: Cecily Brown's paintings do not disturb". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  28. Cecily Brown Gagosian Gallery.
  29. "Cecily Brown". Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  30. First solo show in a German Museum has been realised in Kunsthalle Mannheim, September 18 - December 30, 2005 in collaboration with Modern Art Oxford. Suzanne Cotter; Rolf Lauter: Cecily Brown : Paintings, Oxford / Mannheim 2005. ISBN 978-1901352252
  31. Museum of Fine Arts. "Cecily Brown". Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  32. "Cecily Brown". Deichtorhallen. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  33. "Cecily Brown". Essl Museum. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  34. "Cecily Brown, Paris, October 19–December 20, 2014". 24 April 2018.
  35. Ciganiero, Jake. "Cecily Brown". Retrieved 26 October 2016. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  36. Richard Lacayo, "Art: Major Art Attack," TIme, 29 March 2004.
  37. Julie L. Belcove (8 May 2015), After Gagosian, Cecily Brown Hits Reset: Smaller Paintings, Smaller Gallery, Evil Mice, and Male Nudes New York.
  38. Roberta Smith (23 December 2003), Art World Startled as Painter Switches Dealers The New York Times.
  39. "Doig, Rothko and Dubuffet lead on a night of records in London". Christies.com. 7 March 2017. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  40. Sarah P. Hanson (May 17, 2018), Kerry James Marshall sets $21m record for a living African American artist at Sotheby's The Art Newspaper.
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