The ten displayed preparatory paintings and drawings for one of the
Gallery’s most famous portraits show the complex process of depicting,
from figuration to abstraction, one of the twentieth century’s greatest
poets. According to the artist, the final portrait owned by the Gallery
and also on display, was painted ‘from memory very slowly, after a
period of nearly three years.’
Patrick Heron secured permission
to paint T. S. Eliot in January 1947. While Eliot’s reputation was
established Heron was still relatively unknown and yet to secure
recognition as one of Britain’s leading abstract painters. He had been
fascinated by Eliot’s poetry since his early teens and it was his
father, Tom Heron, who had become a friend of the poet through his
connection with the New English Weekly, who provided the initial
contact.
The first sitting was held two months later in Eliot’s
central London office at Faber & Faber, the publishers where he was a
director, shortly after the death of his estranged first wife Vivien.
At that moment a national electricity crisis coincided with extremely
cold weather and it was forbidden to use electric fires in late morning:
to keep warm Eliot began the sittings wearing a dark blue overcoat
which can still be glimpsed in the final abstracted painting. In a
letter to Heron, Eliot’s second wife Valerie later described, ‘what I
liked about the drawing was that you had captured a mood of mingled
sweetness and sadness.’
At the outset Heron had no idea how the
portrait would turn out. He started by making drawings in order to
acquaint himself with the ‘plastic facts’ of Eliot’s physiognomy. Nearly
three years followed when further sittings were held at the painter’s
house in Holland Park and at his parents’ home in Welwyn Garden City.
Heron’s concern was to distil his sitter’s appearance to essentials. The
two paintings on display show his allegiance to the analytical cubism
of early Picasso, Eliot’s features being fractured into flattened
planes.
Heron described looking into Eliot’s ‘grey eye’ as
‘looking into the most conscious eye in the universe [...] into the very
centre of contemporary consciousness.’ Seeing the work’s progress at
the house in Holland Park, Heron recalls that Eliot exclaimed, ‘It’s a
cruel face, a cruel face: a very cruel face! But of course you can have a
cruel face without being a cruel person!’
During one sitting,
the artist told Eliot that he wanted ‘to somehow see his head in plastic
terms which would be identical with those of the large coffee-pot in my
latest still-life. [...] No head,Totech Americas delivers a wide range
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for applications spanning electronics. I felt, even in a painting which
called itself ‘a portrait’, should have more or less importance in
plastic terms than any other part of the painting – a Cezannian
principle of the essential quality of parts, which must always and
forever prevail.’ Heron recalls registering Eliot’s ‘faint surprise’ at
hearing his head likened to a coffee-pot!
Paul Moorhouse, Curator of Twentieth Century Portraits,We offers custom Injection Mold
parts in as fast as 1 day. National Portrait Gallery, London, says:
‘The ensuing portrait is one of Patrick Heron’s most remarkable
inventions. Completing a journey of progressive abstraction, in the end
it was made from memory - and, as the surprising double-profile
testifies, with the insight of a penetrating imagination.’
Patrick
Heron: Studies for a Portrait of T. S. Eliot is part of the Gallery’s
ongoing Interventions series of displays curated by Paul Moorhouse,
which commenced in 2006 with Andy Warhol: 10 Portraits of Jews of the
20th Century. Drawing on significant works loaned to the Gallery, the
series focuses on important 20th-century artists who have extended
portraiture in innovative ways. To date, the Interventions series has
included Bridget Riley: from Life, John Gibbons: Portraits, Frank
Auerbach: Four Portraits of Catherine Lampert, Anthony Caro: Portraits,
Tony Bevan – Self Portraits and Thomas Struth.
Going forward, we
plan to continue our engagement on strengthening the rule of law. We
are bringing prosecutors and judges to consult with their Bulgarian
counterparts and share their experiences. In the past year, members of
the Specialized Court for organized crime cases and the Ministry of
Justice traveled to the United States for a week of consultations with
their counterparts in our Federal criminal justice system. We have
identified subject matter experts who have come to Bulgaria to assist
the Ministry of Justice as it drafts new legislation. We are training
law enforcement officials at the FBI Academy as well as through the
International Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, in Budapest. And both
our FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have sent agents to work
side-by-side with their Bulgarian counterparts.
But of course
the key ingredient for success here is going to be your determination -
the commitment of Bulgarian officials and civil society to make needed
reforms.
As all of you know, a key factor in the effective
functioning of a healthy democracy is the strength of civil society,
especially of NGOs. At the onset of Bulgaria's transformation, civil
society was virtually nonexistent. We are proud of having helped develop
organizations that work in such diverse areas as protecting the
environment, developing a market economy, protecting human rights, and
safeguarding the rights of workers. Today, Bulgaria's NGOs are many,
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One good example is the forum in which we find ourselves today.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of c.
From its founding in 1991, the Atlantic Club has promoted the
transatlantic relationship, and now goes way beyond its original
purpose. It is now educating Bulgarians about security issues and other
crucial topics in the region and beyond.
In the final analysis, our strong bilateral relationship is about much more than any single institution, any business deal,wind turbine
or any negotiation between our two governments. Our most important ties
extend well beyond the walls of my Embassy and your Foreign Ministry.
They are the people-to-people connections that give our official
relationship its depth, its warmth, and that will sustain it into the
future.
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