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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 Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on 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 visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world that was dedicated to portraits.
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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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.
Katherine Gili is a British sculptor. Born in Oxford in 1948, is the daughter of Catalan publisher and translator Joan Gili and sister of the film-maker Jonathan Gili. She graduated from Bath Academy of Art in 1970 and then studied for two years at St Martin's School of Art. Gili subsequently taught at a number of art schools; most notably St Martin's and Norwich between 1972 and 1985.
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