3 February
–
23 April 2006
Section
2: Looking at BritainMichael Andrews 1928-1995
People on the Beach (August for the People)
1951
© James Hyman Fine Art, on behalf of the Estate
of Michael Andrews
Andrews was studying at the Slade School of Art when he made this painting for the Slade 'Summer Compositions', in which a series of set subjects were offered to students who were expected to make a work in response. The W H Auden poem of the same title was one of the set choices; in all probability William Coldstream, then Professor at the Slade, chose the lines himself. The painting reflects Coldstream's influential teaching of Euston Road School realism based on meticulous factual notation and Andrews' fascination with observing eccentric or incongruous human behaviour. The man on a beach wearing a suit seems to be a comment on the incongruous appearance of British formality in the wrong context.