Stephen Pearson (artist)

Stephen Pearson was an English artist whose surrealist work became exceptionally popular from late 60s and into the 70s. Pearson exhibited in London and in the provincial cities and gained a world-wide reputation from the many successful reproductions of his work. Pearson is known for his “mildly erotic nude male and female fantasy paintings” that have sold millions of copies worldwide.[1] The most famous of these paintings is 'Wings of Love' which is thought to be one the best-selling prints in the world. Stephen Pearson died in March 2003.[2]

Style and influences

Stephen Pearson was born in Yorkshire and studied painting in London and the North, but he preferred to think of himself as self-taught, having learnt from those masters whose work stimulated him most. Asked to name these artists, he would list Caravaggio and those subsequent artists through to Turner who were concerned with the representation of light in its most dramatic forms. Amongst contemporary painters he was most influenced by the surrealists, but ultimately he rejected the negative content of much of their work; hence the romantic fantasies which formed a great part of his output. Pearson worked in oils and pastels and occasionally watercolours and gouache to create “quasi-pornographic, quasi-religious dreamscapes.”[3] He began with the tough subject portrait painting, and worked hard in this field, while at the same time indulging his love of the countryside, producing wonderfully evocative landscapes.[1] His camera, never far from his side, filled with colour slide film, was constantly collecting reference.[1]

Critical reception

Many have described Pearson’s work as “Kitsch” and “fantastically tacky” but the popularity of his work has also been cited as an example of “the public voting with their wallets" who argue that “far from being mass-produced soft-porn trash of the sort that appeals to 14-year-old boys, this kind of painting deserves to be taken more seriously.”[4] They point to the likes of Jeff Koons, whose "ironic" reinterpretations of such imagery beguiled the late 1980s art world, and accuse critics of behaving like snobs.[3] Pearson’s son, Barry Pearson, has said this father possessed a “technical confidence” which meant there were no subjects "out of bounds" and “no repetitive technique that often pigeon holes and makes clearly identifiable a given artists work - he produced his work on every kind of surface imaginable.”[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "stephen pearson". Thecontainergallery.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  2. "Obituary". Art Business News. 30 (6): 14. June 2003.
  3. 1 2 ""Coming soon to a wall near you; Charles Saatchi reckons Wayne Hemingway's collection of kitsch art is 'the right stuff'. NICK CURTIS says the time is ripe for the reinvention of tat."". The Evening Standard (London). November 8, 2000.
  4. ""Weekend: WONDERWALLS: There was the tennis girl, that man and baby, the icy, airbrushed women with electric blue eye shadow and glossy red lips. Think of the pictures that bedecked the bedrooms of teenagers 20 years ago and one name springs to mind: Athena. As the 1980s enjoy a revival, Lindsay Baker looks back at the poster company that became a phenomenon."". The Guardian (London). November 10, 2001.
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