Fighting Cock

Details

Bryan Organ (b. 1935)
Fighting Cock
signed and dated 'Bryan Organ 1978' (lower right), signed again, inscribed and dated again 'Fighting Cock - Bryan Organ 1978' (on the frame)
acrylic on canvas
39¾ x 36 in. (101 x 91.4 cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, London, where acquired by the present owner, 22 July 1988.

Literature

T. Heald, 'Painting a Portrait of the Artist', Telegraph Sunday Magazine, 22 January 1984, p. 30, illustrated.

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Lot Essay

Bryan Organ was born in Leicester in 1935 and studied at Loughborough College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools (1952-59).

He is a celebrated portrait painter and includes amongst his numerous subjects, Diana, Princess of Wales; Prince Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh; Prime Ministers James Callaghan and Harold MacMillan and jockeys Willie Carson and Lester Piggott.

Another of Organ's portrait sitters, Sir Roy Strong, Former Director of the National Portrait Gallery, recalls, 'Bryan Organ's pictures are conceived by contemplation from afar, but not entirely, for both sitter and artist meet for merry lunches and dinners and peering eyes garner in yet more information to distil onto the final canvas (see exhibition catalogue, Bryan Organ New Paintings, London, Redfern Gallery, 1971, p. 2).

Organ's first solo exhibition was at Leicester City Art Gallery in 1958. His work features in many private and public collections, including Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery, Royal Society, Government Art Collection and Oxford University.

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