TRANSFORMATION

ANNE BUCHANAN CROSBY

EAGLE GALLERY CABINET ROOM
16 March – 9 April 2022

In 1971 the painter and art critic Andrew Forge (1923–2002), described Anne Buchanan Crosby’s paintings in the catalogue for her solo exhibition ‘Psycho-mythological paintings’, at the AIA Gallery:

At first sight these pictures look like miniature tributes to Giorgione done without swagger in a cool Northern style. The fields, trees and low hills could be in Italy or Greece, but the light is usually more like the summer light over chalk downs in the South of England. The figures lie or move around naked but without display or grace and they are almost untouched by the sun.

In fact, although the mise en scene is borrowed from a Renaissance model and the scenes that are illustrated are from the myths of Antiquity, Anne Buchanan’s purpose, is far from classical. Like the Strauss of ‘Ariadne’ or the Pasolini of ‘Oedipus’, she is at grips with these stories because of their immediate meaning. She doesn’t evoke distant cultures. The myths seem to be pst of her mind and she can paint them in the present, from the inside. … She holds that the myths offer a complete and flexible system of symbols through which anything can be said.

Anne Buchanan Crosby has used the origin myths of Greek and Roman culture consistently in her work for over 50 years, as the means by which to speak of human nature. An enormously gifted artist, she trained at Camberwell School of Art, where her contemporaries included Craigie Aitchison, Natalie Dower, Patrick George and Euan Uglow. Twice offered solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery, she exhibited very little, preferring to constantly re-work her tiny, jewel-like canvases and panels to create images that explore undercurrents of identity and sexuality.

The Eagle Gallery is delighted to be able to present a selection of previously unseen works that have recently come from the artist’s studio.

Transformation catalogue

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