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Michael Andrews

Earth Air Water

January 20–March 25, 2017
Grosvenor Hill, London

Installation view All artworks © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London., photo by Mike Bruce

Installation view

All artworks © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London., photo by Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Photographs by Bruce Bernard © The Estate of Bruce Bernard. Courtesy Virginia Verran. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Photographs by Bruce Bernard © The Estate of Bruce Bernard. Courtesy Virginia Verran. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

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Installation video

Works Exhibited

Michael Andrews, Thames Painting: The Estuary, 1994–95 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 86 ½ × 74 ½ inches (219.8 × 189.1 cm)Collection of Pallant House Gallery© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Michael Andrews, Thames Painting: The Estuary, 1994–95

Oil and mixed media on canvas, 86 ½ × 74 ½ inches (219.8 × 189.1 cm)
Collection of Pallant House Gallery
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Michael Andrews, Permanent Water Mutidjula, by the Kunia Massif (Maggie Spring, Ayers Rock), 1985–86 Acrylic on canvas, 84 × 102 inches (213.4 × 259.1 cm)© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, Permanent Water Mutidjula, by the Kunia Massif (Maggie Spring, Ayers Rock), 1985–86

Acrylic on canvas, 84 × 102 inches (213.4 × 259.1 cm)
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, SAX A.D. 832—First Painting, 1982 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 × 60 inches (152.4 × 152.4 cm)© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Michael Andrews, SAX A.D. 832—First Painting, 1982

Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 × 60 inches (152.4 × 152.4 cm)
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Michael Andrews, School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna, 1978 Acrylic on canvas, 69 × 69 inches (175.2 × 175.2 cm)© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna, 1978

Acrylic on canvas, 69 × 69 inches (175.2 × 175.2 cm)
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, School I, 1977 Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 83 ⅞ inches (152.5 × 213 cm)© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, School I, 1977

Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 83 ⅞ inches (152.5 × 213 cm)
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, Lights VII: A Shadow, 1974 Acrylic on canvas, 72 × 72 inches (182.9 × 182.9 cm)© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, Lights VII: A Shadow, 1974

Acrylic on canvas, 72 × 72 inches (182.9 × 182.9 cm)
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London

Michael Andrews, The Colony Room I, 1962 Oil on board, 48 × 72 inches (121.9 × 182.8 cm)Collection of Pallant House Gallery© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Michael Andrews, The Colony Room I, 1962

Oil on board, 48 × 72 inches (121.9 × 182.8 cm)
Collection of Pallant House Gallery
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Bruce

Michael Andrews, The Colony Room Landscape, c. 1959 Oil on canvas, 103 ⅝ × 148 ½ inches (263 × 377 cm)© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Michael Andrews, The Colony Room Landscape, c. 1959

Oil on canvas, 103 ⅝ × 148 ½ inches (263 × 377 cm)
© The Estate of Michael Andrews. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

About

Gagosian London is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by the late Michael Andrews (1928–1995).

For the last twenty-five years of his life, Andrews was preoccupied with four series of landscapes—Lights, Scotland, Ayers Rock/Australia, and English Landscape—as well as School, a series depicting different groups of fish. In this exhibition, selected works from the five related series will be presented through the lens of three elemental themes: earth, air, and water.

Though associated with painters of the so-called School of London, such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, and Frank Auerbach, for their exploration of the human form and eschewal of abstraction, Andrews produced radically different work. With a few exceptions, his paintings after 1970 are devoid of people, though not without an implied human presence or drama.

The heightened or dreamlike realism that Andrews achieved after 1970 was partly the result of his painting with a spray gun and water-based acrylic paint, which allowed him to cover the canvas with large expanses of a single color, from airy and atmospheric to intense and saturated. No other British artist in the second half of the twentieth century has immersed himself in the elements of landscape to such an extent. “It seems to me impossible not to paint religious landscapes of aboriginal Australia,” he wrote in 1986, “just as it is almost impossible not to paint historical landscapes in Scotland.”

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