John Swarbrooke Fine Art is delighted to present Portrait Mode, an exhibition coinciding with the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery.
Portrait Mode spans three galleries at Cromwell Place from 27 June - 2 July 2023 and features portraiture by modern masters from Duncan Grant to David Hockney and contemporary portraiture by five gallery artists: Fernando Cidoncha, José Sarmiento, Emerson Pullman, Marcos Wolodarsky and Andrew Mania.
Contemporary Portraiture
Fernando Cidoncha (b. Madrid, 1991; Florence based)
Fernando Cidoncha specialises in painting and sculpture which engages with the history of portraiture and queer identity. His practice begins with drawing out ideas which become translated into intricate, dream-like paintings. As he has written ‘I like to think about my artwork as visual poems that talk about what it means to be human.’
Fernando has been exhibited in a number of international exhibitions including La maternità, Museo degli Innocenti, Florence, 2021; Giovanni Battista, Academia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence; In One Flesh, Museo del Duomo, Florence. He teaches in Florence at the Sacred Art School.
Fernando’s work is found in collections in the USA, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Australia and China.
Through The Window
oil on board
122 x 68 cm.
Reflections of Transience
oil on board
122 x 68 cm.
Growth
oil on board
122 x 68 cm.
The Goldfish Bowl
oil on board
122 x 68 cm.
Contra Mundum
oil on board
122 x 68 cm.
The Guardian
oil on board
122 x 68 cm.
José Guillermo Sarmiento (b. Bucaramanga, Colombia, 1991; London based)
José’s art is drawn from the immediate reality of friends, lovers and acquaintances as well as images he encounters in the wider world. For him, painting and drawing are a means of capturing fleeting moments of intimacy, desire and otherness. Through these media he explores figuration as a way to express the complex relationship between the artist, his subject and surroundings.
José graduated in 2022 from the Master in Fine Arts at Slade School of Art, London and completed a BA in Art and Art History in 2013 at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He has been awarded the Terence Cuneo Memorial Award (London, 2021) from the Slade Committee; The Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant (Canada, 2020), and has been nominated twice for the Colombian Award, Premio de Arte Joven (2018-2020) amongst others.
He has shown in a number of international exhibitions in the USA, UK and Germany including: The Male Nude, 1945 to the Present, The Alice Wilds, Milwaukee, WI, USA, 2023; Pigeon Chest, Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London, 2022; Why don’t you dance, ASC Gallery, London, 2022; Get it for cheap, The Hole, New York, 2020; Summer Intensive Showcase, Camden Arts Centre, London.
José’s work is found in collections in the USA, UK, Australia, Germany, Spain and Colombia.
Iden Sleeping, 2022
oil on canvas
140 x 170 cm.
James, 2023
oil on canvas
51 x 41 cm.
Pablo, 2023
oil on canvas
50 x 40 cm.
Emerson Pullman (b. Llandudno, 1995; London based)
Emerson Pullman completed his MA at the City and Guilds of London in 2022. His portraiture explores themes of memory and mortality through intricate layering of paint, testing the boundary between abstract and figurative art.
Often beginning with an initial drawing, he instinctively pushes forward by making marks and gestures using layers of transparent paint. The depiction of a figure in a scene is used as a starting point for imagining the deeper reality of what is being represented. Fascinated by the process and mechanics of painting, Pullman plays with this and leaves areas unpainted or over-painted and images left without being entirely resolved.
Emerson had his first solo exhibition in London at Cromwell Place with New Normal Projects in 2023 and has been nominated for inclusion in the 2023 Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre, London. Other recent exhibitions include You Are Here, MAPA Fine Art, London, 2023; Cacatopia 07, Annka Kultys, London; London Paint Club Selects: Vol 2, Koppel Projects, London 2022; Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral, Somerset, 2022.
Month of Sundays, 2023
oil on canvas
190 x 190 cm.
Watching Waiting, 2022
oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm.
Holding II
oil on canvas
76 x 60 cm.
Marcos Wolodarsky (b. Madrid 1999; London based)
Marcos Wolodarsky is a London-based artist who graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2021. Marcos’s initial study in architectural practice informs his art, which explores what images can be, collapsing distinctions of the real and projected world. Drawing on a range of source material, from photography to historic film stills, his interest is to do with the role of images, and, specifically, paintings, in our construction of our desires, aspirations and longings.
Marcos’s exhibitions include Act One, Act One Gallery, London, 2022; Art for Ukraine, The Auction Collective, London, 2022; A Short While After, Changing Room Gallery, London, 2022; Era, Crypt Gallery, London, 2021; Port of Call, Changing Room Gallery, London, 2021; Residency 003, Changing Room Gallery, London, 2020.
Shot Arrow
collage on board
110 x 91 cm. (frame)
Falling Figure, 2023
collage on board
120 x 80 cm. (framed)
New Beginnings, 2023
oil on canvas
30 x 30 cm.
Eager, 2023
oil on canvas
30 x 30 cm.
Andrew Mania (b. Bristol 1974; Bristol based)
Andrew Mania explores identity, sexuality and nostalgia through portraiture drawing. His works have been described with the Portuguese term ‘Saudade’ (Martin, S., 2016) a word with no English equivalent, meaning a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone beloved.
Andrew’s solo exhibitions include: Andrew Mania, Bloomberg SPACE, London, 2009; Gogolin, Holbourne Museum of Art, Bath, 2007. His work has been shown in group exhibitions including; PINK, Colette, Paris, 2017; Adult World, Clearview Gallery, London, 2017; BRISTOL, Peter von Kant Gallery, London, 2017; Valentin, monChéri, Brussels,2017; Viaggio in Sicilia: Maps and Myths of the Mediterranean, Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas, Sicily, 2017; Portraits, Francesco Pantaleone Arte Contemporanea, 2012; Nothing but Youth, Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2011 Evening’s Tears, Morning’s Dew, Ancient and Modern, London, 2011; Just Photography, Martos Gallery, New York.
He was awarded the Rome Scholarship in 2004.
Messenger, 2018-21
coloured pencils on wood
63 x 47 cm.
Cullen, 2017
coloured pencils on wood
42 x 31 cm.
Modern Portraiture
Duncan GRANT (1885-1978)
Portrait of a Young Man, 1961
signed upper right D Grant and dated 1961
oil on canvas board
unframed: 43 x 37 cm.
framed: 51.5 x 45 cm.
Painted in Venice in autumn 1961, the sitter was the young son of the family who ran the Hotel Seguso where Grant was staying during this time.
Keith VAUGHAN (1912-1977)
Male Nude, 1947
signed lower right and dated Vaughan/47
pencil on paper
34 x 23 cm
Keith VAUGHAN (1912-1977)
Standing Male Nude, 1948
dated centre right 1948
pencil on paper
35 x 23.5 cm.
£6,500 (plus Artist Resale Right & Shipping)
David HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Byron on Hand, 1980
signed lower centre in pencil, dated and numbered 16/60
lithograph on white handmade Chinese Traditional Tissue
34.3 x 30.1 cm.
Literature:
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo 218; Tyler 264
In 1966, Hockney met Ann Upton who became his muse. Byron, who is depicted here, is Upton’s son, and was the model for two lithographic portraits in 1979-80. He was killed tragically in a train accident in 1982, aged 16.
Celia PAUL (b. 1959)
Portrait of Kate Reading, 1986
signed lower right by Celia Paul and dated 86
charcoal on paper
54.7 x 74.7 cm.
Exhibited:
Washington, DC, Four Seasons Hotel, 2001-2010
Celia Paul’s art stems from a deep connection to the subject matter. Here, she makes an intimate depiction of her sister Kate, who appears to be quietly sitting in bed reading.
£8,500 (plus Artist Resale Right & Shipping)
Portrait Mode
27 June - 2 July 2023
Wing Gallery, Gallery 12 & The Study
Cromwell Place
4 Cromwell Place
London SW7 2JN