Press Release For Immediate Release

A Flight of Churches – Brigid Marlin

‘FIFTY YEARS’ FANTASTIC’ A Selling Exhibition of Art of the Imagination

Monday 19th – Saturday 24th April 2009

The Society for Art of Imagination Celebrates Its Fiftieth Anniversary At La Galleria, Pall Mall, London 30 Royal Opera Arcade London SW1Y 4UY

This selling exhibition, ‘Fifty Years’ Fantastic’, showcases 150 works of art selected from pieces submitted by the 400 artists who support the Society internationally. The Society lives by the credo that Art Should be Challenging. The exhibition will not only be a selling exhibition to raise funds for the charities the Society supports, but also a showcase of some of the past masterpieces from earlier shows that have become iconic images of Art of the Imagination. Prices for the works start from £150.

This art form has been known by many names, including Fantastic Realism, , , Art, Cosmic Art and Inspirational Art. However the work is neither purely abstract nor rigidly realistic. All artists in the Society work independently of one another across 23 countries yet their work shows a consistent ethos. This art form dates right back to the visionary paintings of Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch, through Leonardo de Vinci, William Blake, Dali’s Surrealism right up to Professor Ernst Fuchs, one of the founders of the School of Fantastic Realism, who is the Society’s Honorary President. Yet despite this heritage, figurative art has only recently been championed again, by none other than Charles Saatchi, and the Society is continuing to recruit artists from across the globe. The Society for Art of Imagination is the longest running group of living artists in the field of Imaginative Art in the world.

The historical collection of work to be displayed includes pieces by early members, all of whom have had international exhibitions and high profile clients. Brigid Marlin, whose The Flight of Churches has become one of the iconic images of the Society through to her portraits of the Dalai Lama and the Queen Mother. Ernst Fuchs’ Biblical works include Psalm 69 (1960) and Adam and Eve in front of the Tree of Knowledge (1984). Whereas Michel Ouen de St Ouen, brought up in Central Africa from an old French family, is inspired by the Holy Grail, magic and the occult creating Sangreal and Eternal Muse that draw from legends of the lands he has lived in.

Laurie Lipton’s early work Unleashed Passion portrays a child riding a savage black panther in the remains of a nursery, to her more recent Remote Control, where a terminally ill couple act out the passion of their younger selves through glove puppets – her work is known for the incredible detail and realism brought to life by her pencil. Marcus Usherwood’s Dr. Mengele’s Circus, certainly lives up to the ethos of art is challenging. Diana Hesketh’s carved wooden Leopard recalls the traditions of the Benin people. H.R.Giger merges elements from the Oscar-winning film, Alien, a bat and 1930’s automobile design to create his powerful Guardian Angel. Eike Erzmoneit’s The Narrowing of Stagefright illustrates how his work using the imagery of the wall and his fascination for exploring the idea of changing dimensions exemplified by the space analogies that harks back to his growing up in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. The selling exhibition will include paintings, mixed media sculpture, including work from a new member, Siddy Langley; she is one of the foremost glass blowers in England.

The Society was founded in 1960 by a group of three artists; Peter Holland, Brigid Marlin and Jack Ray. They called themselves the Inscape Group, to symbolize the ‘inner landscape of the mind’. Then in 1993 the expanding Inscape Group changed its name to The Society for Art of Imagination. It became a US charity in 2001 with joint patrons Virginia Rogers and Ann Oestreicher. (The name Inscape is honoured in the title of the Society magazine.)

The Society’s advisory board includes Jeanie, Countess of Carnarvon, Countess Darya Tolstoy, John Amor, Mary Craig, Mary O’Hara, and Dr Padraig O’Toole. The Honorary art patrons include some of the leading artists in this field of art, Laurie Lipton, H.R.

2 Giger, Lukas Kandl, , Brigid Marlin, Martina Hoffmann, Michael Parkes, Robert Venosa, Ingo Swann and Michel Ouen de Saint Ouen.

Michel Ouen de St Ouen Chairman of the Society comments:”The artist should be a creator, a transformer linked to the inner spirit who, with skill and imagination, constructs a creation which embodies or symbolises a significant human value in a way which never existed before; to enhance, illuminate and perpetuate what is best in human values." -Ends- Photography Available www.artofimagination.org

For further information: Brigid Marlin Tel: 01442 864454 Society for Art of the Imagination E: [email protected] 28 Castle Hill Berkhamstead W: www.artofimagination.org Herts HP4 1HE

Michel Ouen de Saint Ouen Chairman UK Branch & INSCAPE Magazine Editor 17 Belgrave Gardens London NW8 0QY

Media Enquiries: T: +44(0)20 3176 0144 Russell Cassleton Elliott M: +44(0)7808 403 963 Cassleton Elliott & Co. Ltd. E: [email protected] Notes to Editors: The Society was formed to assist the resurgence of interest in craftsmanship and vision in art and create a forum where artists working in this tradition can show their work created in all media and exhibit their works internationally to collectors. Since their inception, fifty years ago they have grown to an International Society with 400 artists coming from 23 countries and members all over the world. The American branch is a registered US Charity. The Society has an interactive website that showcases the art of all members with hyper-links their own sites and is affiliated to all other major societies and galleries in this genre. The Society arranged and sponsored the largest exhibition of this genre in Brooklyn in 2002.

The Society has organised art classes in the Renaissance painting technique (Mische Technique) in the USA, Europe and Africa. A tour of 57 Visionary African artists which toured Europe, culminating in their Exhibition at the Mall Galleries two years ago, was also arranged as part of the charitable work undertaken by the Society. The Society has recently shown in the Zendai Museum, Shanghai, the Museum of , Nairobi, The InterArt Gallery Manhattan New York, and the Imaginaire Gallery Denmark.

3 Art of Imagination is two-fold. It is the "art" - the skill and techniques evolved over centuries - and the "imagination" by which we mean the vision of the artist which lifts the work of art above the ordinary, and gives it a life of its own. This combination of art and vision has been created through time and blossomed at different periods throughout the history of art, notably in these periods:

14th -15th Century: The Early Flemish School which reached its high point in the visionary paintings of Jan van Eyck (1385-1441) and his brother Hubert who were the first to invent oil painting, Hieronymus Bosch (c1450-1516) painted visions which were full of a dark and surreal power

15th Century: The Italian Renaissance produced the poetic paintings of Sandro Botticelli (c1444- 1510); the mystical beauty of the works of Piero della Francesca (c1415 -1492) and the powerful and enigmatic works of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

16th- 17th Century: The Flemish and Dutch Schools gave rise to Pieter Breughel the Elder (1525- 1569) who gave a broad allegorical meaning to his landscapes, and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606- 1669), who did paintings of great religious intensity.

18th Century: The English Mystic Artists were William Blake (1757- 1827) a poet and visionary only appreciated by a small circle of artists late in his lifetime, and his follower and admirer Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) who founded a school of artists based on Blake called the Ancients.

19th Century: The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren formed themselves in England to return to the sincerity of the Early Renaissance before Raphael developed his "grand" manner. The three most prominent members were Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1892).

19th to early 20th Century: The Symbolists in France explored the exotic world of dreams. Begun by Gustave Moreau (1826- 1898) the movement embraced Odilon Redon (1840-1916) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Other artists in the Symbolist school were Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863-1944), and Austrian Gustav Klimt (1862- 1918).

1924 -1945 The Surrealist Movement was created after the First World War by artists and writers who were influenced by the horrors of the war and by their interest in the writings of Sigmund Freud. They were introspective, interested in exploring the subconscious. The most notable were Max Ernst (1891-1976), founder of Dada, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1974), and Rene Magritte (1898-1967). Salvador Dali (1904-1989), with his dark dream paintings, became the most famous. In the USA Georgia O'Keeffe (1887- 1986) painted with a mystical intensity that was to influence many younger painters in America.

1945 - The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism was formed after the Second World War when a group of young artists banded together. They were Erich Brauer, Ernst Fuchs, , and , all marked by the horrors of the recent war.

The founder of the group was Ernst Fuchs (1930 - ) whose work reflected the terrible experiences of life in a Concentration Camp. After the war ended Ernst attended the Vienna Academy of Art and there discovered that techniques were no longer being taught. He journeyed to Paris and there began his research and experimentation which resulted in his rediscovery of the Mische Technique, one of the secrets of the Renaissance; a way of painting with egg-tempera and oil glazes which made the picture absolutely permanent. After an Exhibition of his work in this technique in Paris in 1954, Ernst Fuchs' fame spread abroad, and young artists from all over the world came to learn this technique, which he generously shared with all those who could learn from him.

A few years later many artists from America came to study with Fuchs. Bob Venosa, , Phil Jacobson, Joseph Askew, Brigid Marlin, Herbert Ossberger, Linda Gardner, Clayton Campbell, Hanna Kay, Sandra Reamer and Olga Speigel, among others. They were joined by artists from as far away as and Israel, and a new World-wide Art Movement was formed.

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