Nancy Guinness (born 1979) is a British figurative painter. Her work ranges from still life to landscape and portrait. [1]
She has had solo exhibitions internationally, including at Saatchi Gallery, London in 2019 and Keats-Shelley House, Rome in 2020 [2] . Based on footfall (3,329 per day), Nancy Cadogan's solo show Mind Zero at the Saatchi Gallery was one of the top 100 exhibitions in the world in 2019. [3]
In 2022, she was invited as Artist in Residence at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Paris [4] . Her latest project, ‘The Lost Trees’, explores our relationship with trees, time, and the natural world.
In 2024, she was invited by the Torre delle Arti, Bellagio, to showcase a body of work inspired by Lake Como, titled 'Stanza'. Director of the Ingram Collection, Jo Baring has described these works as "a poetic dialogue with the viewer, inviting us into a space of contemplation through the eloquence of her painterly prose.”
Cadogan's childhood included stints in Crete and Cyprus with her father. [5] Her family later moved back to UK. Cadogan attended Oxford High School followed by City and Guilds of London Art School before graduating from Canterbury Christ Church University with a degree in Fine Art Painting in 2002. She moved to New York shortly after, sharing a studio in the Starrett-Lehigh Building with artist Franco Ciarlo.
She had sell-out solo shows [6] at Frost & Reed, New York in 2005 and 2006, the former featuring “a series of dramatic paintings depicting the vast Utah landscapes. [7] ” In 2008 Cadogan returned to the UK and followed her early success with another solo show at Sladmore Contemporary, London. [8] With breaks for motherhood, she continues to paint from her studio in Northamptonshire and most recently featured in shows with Art Bastion. Miami, in Miami and Southampton, US and The Blue Edition [9] in London. She was named one of 'Top 20 New British Art Talents' by Tatler magazine in 2008, describing her as "the new Paula Rego". [6]
In 2017, she was one of 93 women artists chosen to exhibit their work in The Ned, London, in its permanent Vault 100 exhibition highlighting the disparity between women and men CEOs. [10]
Much of her earlier work focused on portrait and landscapes, and "demonstrate[s] a skillful and purposeful use of colour, balanced with planes and spaces that draw your eye out into large vistas. [11] "
In more recent work, which can be seen on Artsy [12] and Art Sales Index, Nancy turns to the concepts of stillness and place, both in the sense of a still life and the various emotional connotations held semantically. Her works are deceptively simple but require deep reading. She has stated, "I am interested in stillness, not only in the sense of a still life and how that tradition explores the passing of time, but actual physical stillness. [1] " Critics have also noted her strong use of colour, particularly blues. [13]
Cadogan's subject matter has included Morocco, Utah and Lake Como. In recent work Cadogan has focused on still lives, almost exclusively books. In one sense, the works are typical of the still life genre and record a sense of time passing. In another, they reflect on the concept of stillness more widely, as a rare condition within our hyper-networked contemporary reality, and instead celebrate quiet reflection. As Cadogan has stated, ‘The book – the actual physical paper bound object full of words – is a treasure in this modern era. A book contains an entire universe you can only bring to life in your imagination, if you agree to give it time. It is a tribute to privacy, an honouring of the interior life.' [14]
In recent works Cadogan has chosen to focus on large-scale pieces reflecting the beauty of the every day and the inner life of the mind. Saatchi Gallery Director Philippa Adams stated, “Nancy’s works delightfully capture the sensation of being lost in one’s own thoughts. Their joyful exuberance brings a moment of reflection and calm in today’s uncertain world.” [15]
Cadogan is the daughter of the archaeologist Gerald Cadogan, known for his work on the Myrtos Pyrgos Minoan site on Crete and the Maroni Vournes [30] site on Cyprus.
Cadogan married Edward Benjamin Newton Guinness of the Guinness family in Como in 2006 and has legally taken his surname. [31] They have three children and lives in Northamptonshire.
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art. By May 2017 the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries.
The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art.
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, followed by shows purely of painting, led to Saatchi Gallery becoming a recognised authority in contemporary art globally. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames, and finally in Chelsea, Duke of York's HQ, its current location. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity and began a new chapter in its history. Recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of physical degree shows due to the pandemic.
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