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Clare Noel Shenstone (born 27 October 1948) is an English artist. She is considered notable for her cloth relief heads and her figure drawings. Her portraits hang in some major British collections including the National Portrait Gallery and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
During 1972 and 1973 Shenstone completed the foundation course at the Central School of Art & Design before entering the Chelsea School of Art where she completed a degree in painting in 1976. [1] Shenstone then studied at the Royal College of Art, RCA, and graduated with a master's degree in 1979. [1]
Francis Bacon saw her degree show at the RCA and asked to buy Janet – one of her images made out of fine cloth which she referred to as her "cloth heads". [1] Bacon went on to commission a cloth head portrait of himself, which led to many sittings together over a period of four years, at a time when Bacon was largely reclusive. [2] Shenstone executed multiple Bacon studies in oil, gouache, pastel, pencil and various experimental media. [2] He became her mentor and great friend. When Bacon died in 1992, John Edwards, Bacon's friend to whom he left his estate, also asked Shenstone to produce a cloth head portrait of himself to hang next to Bacon and Janet. [2] The National Portrait Gallery in London hold examples of Shenstone's sketches of Bacon. [3]
Both the Manhattan Theatre Club Theatre in New York and the Oxford Playhouse Company commissioned sets of drawings from Shenstone in 1981. [1] Among the group shows Shenstone participated in included the Whitechapel Open at the Whitechapel Gallery in both 1983 and 1984. [1] Shenstone's connections to Bacon led to her involvement in the 1992 exhibition Artist of the Colony Room: a Tribute to Muriel Belcher held at the Parkin Gallery. The same venue hosted Portraits of Francis Bacon in 1998 which included Shenstones' studies of Bacon. [1]
“Her very ambitious and wide-ranging exhibition Personification at the Sainsbury Centre was one of the most successful exhibitions ever held at the Centre”, Charles Saumarez Smith, Director National Gallery.
"Duality is essential Shenstone: engaging with humanity through images of name and unnamed individuals, but also exploring and extending art. We, coming to it, cannot separate the art-ness from the human-ness. They are interdependent, fused in the work.” Art historian, Norbert Lynton.
“Distinctive, penetrating eye for the psychological make-up of her sitters” – John Rosenfield, Art Historian and Professor Emeritus, Harvard University.
“Through Clare’s work, Lisa (Sainsbury) ‘re-established’ the close relationship she and Bob enjoyed with Francis Bacon. Lisa has commented that it is a curious experience to rediscover an artist in the process of discovering the work of another.” Dame Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum 1987–95.
“Again and again she presents an image of someone close-by and alert, a bodily presence; again and again we are reminded that there is also a spiritual being, barely to be grasped by material means, one that we have to meet halfway by engaging with the only slightest touches of the brush.” Art historian, Norbert Lynton.
“We have grown unused to inventive realism. Clare does not fit into any obvious category of contemporary art. But the same was said of her mentor, Francis Bacon.” Charles Saumarez Smith, Director National Gallery.
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly in London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and appreciation of the fine arts through exhibitions, education and debate.
Francis Bacon was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. Rejecting various classifications of his work, Bacon said he strove to render "the brutality of fact." He built up a reputation as one of the giants of contemporary art with his unique style.
Sir Charles Robert Saumarez Smith is a British cultural historian specialising in the history of art, design and architecture. He was the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2007 until he stepped down in 2018. He was replaced by Axel Rϋger, who took up the position in 2019.
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Robin Warwick Gibson was a British gallery curator and art historian best known for his work at the National Portrait Gallery in London between 1968 and 2001, including eight years as Chief Curator. He was responsible for many innovations in the management of the gallery and published a number of significant academic works on the gallery's collections during his career.
Sarah Natasha Raphael was an English artist best known for her portraits and draughtsmanship.
Ken Kiff, was an English figurative artist, who was born in Dagenham and trained at Hornsey School of Art 1955-61. He came to prominence in the 1980s thanks to the championship of art critic Norbert Lynton, and a cultural climate intent on re-assessing figurative art following the Royal Academy's ‘New Spirit in Painting’ exhibition in 1981. He started exhibiting at Nicola Jacob's gallery, moved to Fischer Fine Art in 1987, and finally to the Marlborough Gallery in 1990, by which time he had begun exhibiting internationally and had work in major public collections. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1991 and became Associate Artist at the National Gallery 1991–93. His 30-year teaching career at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College influenced a generation of students.
Harold Harvey (1874–1941) was a Newlyn School painter who painted scenes of working-class Cornish fishermen, farmers and miners and Cornish landscapes. He was born in Penzance and trained at the Penzance School of Arts under Norman Garstin and the Académie Julian in Paris (1894–1896).
Margaret Nairne Mellis was a Scottish artist, one of the early members and last survivors of the group of modernist artists that gathered in St Ives, in Cornwall, in the 1940s. She and her first husband, Adrian Stokes, played an important role in the rise of St Ives as a magnet for artists. She later married Francis Davison, also an artist, and became a mentor to the young Damien Hirst.
Richard John Spare is a British artist and Master Printmaker known primarily for his drypoints, etchings and oil paintings. He is based in London.
Frances Aviva Blane, is a British abstract painter who works in the Expressionist tradition. Her subject matter is the disintegration of paint and personality. Although her paintings are mainly non-referential, her drawings are often portraits of heads.
Katherine Gili is a British sculptor. After completing her studies at Bath Academy of Art and St Martin's School of Art, Gili taught at a number of art schools; most notably St Martin's and Norwich between 1972 and 1985.
Barbara Dawson is an Irish author, editor, art historian, gallery director, and curator. She is curator of several art exhibitions including the works of notable artists such as Francis Bacon (2009).
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