Alison Watt
Sabine
2000What Is Happening Now?
The acquisition of Diana and Callisto in 2012 - along with the purchase of its companion painting Diana and Actaeon in 2009 - ensures that these two superlative works by Titian will remain together on public display in either London or Edinburgh. This will ensure that the remainder of the Bridgewater Collection will also continue to be on public view for many years to come.
Artist Alison Watt stated in 2009, ‘I simply can't imagine these paintings, which I have known and loved my whole life, not being on show.’
Lucian Freud, described them as “simply the most beautiful pictures in the world”.
'Sabine' comes from a series of four paintings entitled 'Shift' that Watt showed in an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2000. She was inspired by the sensuous nature of the fabric that features in Ingres's paintings of women. Watt found a way of representing the body using the shapes created in fabric, focusing on the suggestive power of material. In this monumental painting, the meticulously painted folds and creases of the fabric evoke the human figure and create a sense of rhythm and movement.
Watt was born in Greenock and studied at Glasgow School of Art. She first came to prominence when, still a student, she won a national portrait competition organised by the National Portrait Gallery in London. Watt subsequently became known for her paintings of figures, often female nudes, in light-filled rooms. This led on to a series of works exploring the properties of fabric. In 2000 she became one of the youngest artists to have a solo exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
- Credits Purchased (Knapping Fund) 2001
- Medium Oil on canvas
- Size 213.50 x 213.50 cm
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- ? Alison Watt
