Artwork Title: Professor Carel Weight

Professor Carel Weight, 1961

Ruskin Spear

Carel Weight and Ruskin Spear both taught at the Royal College of Art, where this portrait was painted. A painting by David Hockney, who was then one of Weight’s pupils, rests on an easel in the background. Spear rarely idealizes the people in his portraits. Here he shows Weight with dropping shoulders, ruffled hair and a dream-like expression on his face. By painting in this objective style, Spear communicates his empathy and, in this case, his close friendship with the sitter. Painted in the summer of 1961, this was not a commissioned portrait. The background is one of the painting studios at the Royal College of Art, where the sitter has been Professor of Painting since 1957. Also in the background is David Hockney, then in his last year at the college and on the easel is one of his paintings, probably ‘A Grand Procession of Dignitaries in the Semi-Egyptian Style’ (information from Mrs Ruskin Spear... [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/spear-professor-carel-weight-t00527]
Uploaded on Mar 26, 2018 by Suzan Hamer

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