OLIVER BEVAN

FIGURATIVE ART / URBAN REALISM

oil paintings, lithographs

Public Gardens, Barcelona oil on canvas 40 x 120 cm

THE PAINTER OF MODERN LIFE

The Realist Art Movement in France in the 19th century proposed that ordinary people and places should be painted with the same love and respect that former generations had lavished upon royalty, great events and mythological scenes. Seurat celebrated the lower middle class at leisure in his heroic 'Baignade' in the National Gallery in London. Degas painted women ironing clothes, combing hair and washing themselves. Van Gogh celebrated local people, the postman, the doctor. Sickert frequented and painted London's music halls. This was a movement which brought art closer to common experience and seemed set to persist as a dominant form into the 20th century.

The impact of photography: By the last decade of the 19th century, the camera could manage exposures fast enough to photograph moving subjects. Urban realism became the territory of photography, cinema and more recently electronic media. Many artists and movements throughout the century in various countries have sought to reclaim the city for painting, including Die Neue Sachlichkeit in Germany, The Camden Town School in London and Edward Hopper and The Ash Can School in New York. I am one of a number of artists who have worked in this tradition in the United Kingdom and am continuing to work around urban themes in the South of France and in Italy.

Oliver Bevan 2005

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