#craigie aitchison

[thunderstruck9]

Craigie Aitchison (British, 1926-2009), Saint Francis, 1993. Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5 cm. Jerwood Collection

[topcat77]

CRAIGIE AITCHISON

WHITE BUTTERFLY, YELLOW PAINTING, 1964

[myfairynuffstuff]

Craigie Aitchison (1926 - 2009) - Christmas Rose. Oil on canvas.

[oldsardens]

Craigie Aitchison - Still life with Bird Vase. 2004

[heartsaglownow]

CRAIGIE AITCHISON

[mybeingthere]

Scottish artist Craigie Aitchison CBE RA RSA (1926-2009) was well known for his paintings depicting landscapes, portraits, and crucifixion scenes in a distinctive Mediterranean palette.

Andrew Lambirth, who knew Craigie for 20 years wrote wrote so stories in the Atchinson's Catalogue Raisonné. Here are a few bits of his recollections:

"Although Scottish by birth, Aitchison moved to London in 1963, and thereafter divided his time between his terraced house in Lambeth and a second home in Italy, outside Siena. He painted still-life subjects, religious pictures, portraits and nudes, landscapes and his dogs. His preferred models tended to be West Indian or African because he loved the way other colours looked next to warm skin tones.

The first painting by Aitchison to enter a UK public collection was Model Standing Against a Blue Wall (1962), when it was bought by the Tate from the Beaux Arts Gallery in 1964.

Some of Aitchison's most popular paintings have been of objects he lived with: a tea caddy or a candlestick, a cup or a vase (mostly with flowers in it), a cellophane-wrapped Italian Easter egg or a handful of liquorice allsorts.

If Aitchison found a good model, he would paint him or her repeatedly, and his all-time favourite was Georgeous Macaulay.

There are several of his Crucifixions in public collections, but one of the most memorable is in Birmingham, dating from 1984–1986. A large canvas, as many of Aitchison's late Crucifixions are, it depicts Christ on the cross, but without any arms.

Aitchison was quite prepared to take liberties with human anatomy if it helped him to make the image more powerful, and his Christ figures sometimes have only one arm or one leg. (As he once replied to an interviewer who asked him why he did this: 'Not everyone is lucky enough to be born with two arms and two legs'.)

Craigie first painted a Crucifixion when he was a student at the Slade School of Fine Art, which is part of University College in London. One of the teachers said: 'It's a very serious subject and much too big a subject for you to tackle.' But that only spurred Craigie on to paint another one.

He never succumbed to adverse criticism, though he remembered it and was clearly wounded by it. Two visiting Slade tutors, Victor Pasmore and John Piper, both told him to give up painting. Thankfully he didn't. As he said, if it had been somebody he really respected, like L. S. Lowry, also a visiting teacher, he might have paid attention. But Lowry only encouraged him.

Considering the crowded nature of his home, he was surprisingly minimalistic in his art, as well as a great colourist. He thought his intensely poetic images were quite straightforward, but they are impossible to imitate convincingly. Although they look so effortless, he himself often had trouble with them.

In another interview with me in 2004, Aitchison discussed this: 'That seems to be all that it's about – deciding. Somebody said that painting is a complete and absolute way of having to make up one's mind. Whether to put two trees instead of one, or to leave it. It's exhausting trying to make up your mind. If it wasn't like that it would just be boring to do.'

Andrew Lambirth, writer and author of "Craigie Aitchison – Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné"

https://artuk.org/.../the-intensely-poetic-paintings-of...

[auroraborealis22]

Craigie Ronald John Aitchison

[b0yish]

Craigie Aitchison (1926-2009)

Wayney Going to Heaven (1989)

[yes-bernie-stuff]

Crucifixion

Marc 10 : 28-31

Et nous ? Nous avons tout laissé...

Crucifixion,

Peint par Craigie Aitchison (1926-2009),

Tirage publié en 2001,

Sérigraphie sur papier, édition numérotée de 75 exemplaires, imprimée et publiée par Advanced Graphics, Londres

© Bonhams Londres, 7 décembre 2022

[heinzschumi]

Craigie Aitchison stained glass window installed in 2012, St Mary The Boltons.

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Photo by Heinz Schumi.

Thursday, 18th May 2023.

All rights reserved 2023 (C)

[thunderstruck9]

Craigie Aitchison (British, 1926-2009), Vase with Lily, 1998. Oil on canvas, 10 x 8 in.

[topcat77]

CRAIGIE AITCHISON

[iamjapanese]

Craigie Aitchison（Scottish, 1926-2009）

Bird and Candle Still-Life   1989   oil on canvasboard   25.4 x 20.3 cm   via

[campsis]

Craigie Aitchison, Butterflies in a Landscape, 1956 [Piano Nobile]

[felixinclusis]

Craigie Aitchison, R.A. Flower and butterfly

[guy60660]

Craigie Aitchison | Grand Artist