Vanishing Point 4 (Solimena)

© Barbara Walker MBE RA. Image courtesy of the Cristea Roberts Gallery, London. For education p…

Images(2)

Painting upon which Barbara Walker's drawing is based: Francesco Solimena. Dido Receiveng Aenea…

Artist/Maker Barbara Walker MBE RA (British, born 1964)

Date2018

MediumGraphite on embossed paper

DimensionsPlate: 15 3/16 × 23 5/16 in. (38.6 × 59.2 cm) Sheet: 24 3/16 × 31 5/16 in. (61.5 × 79.5 cm) Frame: 24 1/2 × 31 1/2 × 1 3/4 in. (62.2 × 80 × 4.4 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick '34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund

Object number2019.11

Not on view

DescriptionThis work is one of a suite of 11 works based on Old Master paintings in the National Gallery, London. This particular work is based on Francesco Solimena (Italian, 1657 - 1747), Dido receiving Aeneas and Cupid disguised as Ascanius, 1710. " 'Vanishing Point’, explores the visibility of Black subjects in Western European painting within a British national art collection. As demonstrated throughout Walker established bodies of work, she is interested in the representation of Black people in our public archives and collections. 'Vanishing Point' is an opportunity to explore this interest further, and to focus in particular on Art History and the way it has been shaped by institutions and the art establishment in this country from the late Georgian period to the present day. ‘Vanishing Point’, is the outcome of the Evelyn Drawing award to Walker association with Jerwood Drawing Prize 2017 and loans from the National Gallery has have been made possible thanks to a grant from the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund, an initiative created by the Garfield Weston Foundation and Art Fund. (SOURCE: Artist's website, https://www.barbarawalker.co.uk/index.php/works/vanishing-point/, accessed 7/19/19) "[Walker] works on a size comparable to large sheets of surviving old master drawings, easel size versions that in most cases for the originals, would have existed as drawings on comparable scale, prior to transfer to a surface to take the painting. There are analogies too with the types of drawings that were made by engravers to reproduce a painting. As artists in those eras thought through compositional study, Walker first works meticulously to expose the workings of the overall composition and the black figuration within it. Working with the image in reverse on the computer, and removing, or leaving almost abstracted, the overall figures, the artist draws out, as it were, the powerful secondary presence of the black figuration in these works. This provides the reliefs to the image which when converted to a plate and printed as a blank, produces the embossed images which she then works on to re-insert the black figuration in graphite drawing and occasional use of coloured pencil. Other parts of the image such as skies maybe reconstructed through drawing." (SOURCE: David Alston, September 2018, https://www.barbarawalker.co.uk/files/Vanishing_Point.pdf, accessed 7/19/19)

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