Gerald Laing

Gerald Laing was born in Newcastle in 1936. He studied painting at St Martin’s School of Art, London, between 1960-1964. He was artist-in-residence at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, Colorado (1965). He returned to the UK in 1969 where he renovated the ruined Kinkell Castle, near Dingwell, where he has lived ever since. He continued his close ties with the U.S. and was Visiting Professor of Painting and Sculpture at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (1974-5). He taught sculpture at Columbia University in New York in the mid-1980s. In 1975 he established a bronze foundry in order to cast his own work at Kinkell Castle with assistance from the late George Mancini. His numerous public commissions include Callanish at Strathclyde University, Glasgow (1971); The Frieze of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, George Street, Edinburgh (1979); The Fountain of Sabrina, Broad Quay, Bristol (1981); The Conan Doyle Memorial, Picardy Place, Edinburgh (1989); Axis Mundi, Tanfield House, Edinburgh (1990); Ten Dragons, Bank Underground Station (1994); Four Rugby Players, Twickenham Stadium, Middlesex (1995); Portrait bust of Sir Paul Getty, The National Gallery, London (1996); The Wormsley Cricketer (1997) and The Wormsley sundial (2000) at Wormsley Cricket Ground, Buckinghamshire; The Cover Drive, Lords Cricket Ground (2002); Falcon Square Mercat Cross, Inverness (2003). Since 2003 he has returned to painting, using the idiom of his early Pop works to express ideas about recent political events. This is his first exhibition at Mary Ryan Gallery.