Date:1991
Description:
Terry Atkinson (born 1939)
Darker Pink Enola Gay Axo-head 1, 1991
Acrylic on wood board
230mm x 320mm
The Enola Gay series was begun in 1988 and finished in 1992. This series attempts to bring philosophical issues back into focus, dragging monochrome painting into the realm of political art. This image is of the US B29 bomber, Enola Gay, that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. The removal of the corners of the conventional rectangle of the monochrome is an attempt to distort and distends the monochrome. The image of the Enola Gay is so small as to make it hard to figure it out as anything other than a mark on the monochromatic surface.
The pastel colours of the Enola Gay paintings are associated with femininity, safety and the comforting consumer aesthetic of the shopping mall, belying the proximity of weapons of mass destruction.
Over the past 40 years Terry Atkinson has played a significant role in the direction of international contemporary art through his own practice and teaching. He was born in the coal mining village of Thurnscoe in South Yorkshire. He lived there until 1960, when he moved to London to attend the Slade School in October of that year. In 1968 he co-founded the collaborative art group and teaching forum, Art and Language, with David Bainbridgem Michael Baldwin and Harold Hurrell. This was centred on Coventry School of art where Atkinson had started to teach in October 1966. Art and Language expanded the definition of art, basing their art and writing on a continual examination of the concept and role of art and criticism. Art and Language challenged the idea that you could not question visual language used by artists because it was something centred in the artist's soul, therefore private and could not be understood by the public. Terry Atkinson lived and worked in Leamington Spa.
© Terry Atkinson
The timeline shows resources around this location over a number of years.
Pierre Quesnel (formerly attributed to) (fl. 1561-1580) Portrait of Dorothy Shirley, ...
Jan Josephsz van Goyen (after) Landscape with Bridge, 1600-1900 Oil on panel 158mm ...
Anthony van Dyck (after) (1599-1641) Untitled, 1621 - 1700 Oil on canvas 1130mm ...
Studio of Jan van Kessel I Basket of Flowers, 1650-1675 Oil on copper 164mm x 216mm ...
Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne (After) (1589-1662) Cavalcade of the Princes of Nassau, ...
Hans Hysing (Huyssing) (1678-1753) Miss Reynolds, Sister of the Bishop of Lincoln, ...
Richard Houston Samuel Greatheed, 1770 Ink on paper engraving 320mm x 220mm The ...
Unknown artist James Bisset, 1793 Oil on canvas 740mm x 615mm James Bisset (1761 ...
Unknown artist Mr Richard Hopton, 1818 Watercolour on paper 75mm x 55mm A silhouette ...
Thomas Baker (1808-1864) Landscape with River and Sheep, 1836 Oil on canvas 250mm ...
Edwin Toovey (1826-1906) Untitled, 1859 Watercolour on paper 275mm x 446mm A country ...
George Percy Jacomb-Hood (1857-1929) Towing The Barge, France, 1880 Ink on paper 210mm ...
Basil James Nightingale (1864-1940) His Majesty The King, 1902 Pencil on paper 405mm ...
George Percy Jacomb-Hood (1857-1929) The Spanish Shawl, 1923 Oil on canvas 580mm ...
Sir Terry Frost (13th October 1915 - 1 September 2003) Prisoner of War, 21st March ...
Alex Mann (born 1923) Strings, 1965 Oil on canvas 680mm x 590mm An abstract painting ...
Thomas Baker (1808-1864) A Worcestershire Scene, 1836 Watercolour on paper 185mm ...
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Donor ref: LEAMG : A1002.2003 (64/24584)
Source: Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum
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