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Ensayo del lote
A human pyramid is usually a tiered formation of athletes or acrobats making a balanced triangular structure of bodies. In Uglow's case it is a single figure emulating an Egyptian Pharaonic stone tomb, the kind of shape and structure that had interested him at least since he painted Salt Triangle at Hyères, France (1961), now in the Government Art Collection. In the early 1990s, a couple of trips to Egypt had newly enthused him for the pyramidal form, and he tried to make his own versions. Not pleased with the results, he decided instead to ask a model to pose as a pyramid.
The idea of painting a woman as architecture was typically radical, yet the result is not just a remarkably compact and powerful image, it is also unexpectedly beautiful. Uglow was known for demanding much of his models, but Pyramid required a particularly testing pose, much as Summer Picture (1971-72) had done, twenty years before. There is a similarity in the crisp fullness of shape the girls' bodies assume, and both paintings are also much concerned with the fall of light, the intensity of colour and the distortions of perspective.
When the painter Anthony Eyton asked Uglow if he thought he would be affected by his experience of visiting Egypt (he went in 1991 and 1992, and once again later), he replied 'only through osmosis'. But in fact he did bring back a human skull which he then painted (between 1994 and 1997, thus overlapping with Pyramid), a rather more tangible proof of influence.
Uglow had long admired the solidity and stillness, the monumentality and detachment of Egyptian sculpture, and his response to the physical presence of the pyramids was a passionate confirmation of this. Back in his London studio, he painted his own interpretation of the experience. By obscuring the model's head in shadow, the person-quality of the image is reduced, helping the viewer to focus on the idea animating the picture – namely the shape of the pyramid. However, the humanity of the figure remains inescapable: this is a precise rendition of a very particular body, even though the sitter's identity is hidden. There is thus a potent dialogue going on between the individual and the universal, as well as between the flesh tones of the figure and the green and ochre setting, and between the inscribed circles and squares of the studio set-up and the irregularly rounded shapes of a human body. These various formal relationships help to account for the lasting effect of what is a particularly vibrant image in Uglow's oeuvre.
Dr Andrew Lambirth is the author of the acclaimed recent study of Uglow's life and work, The Uglow Papers (2025).
The idea of painting a woman as architecture was typically radical, yet the result is not just a remarkably compact and powerful image, it is also unexpectedly beautiful. Uglow was known for demanding much of his models, but Pyramid required a particularly testing pose, much as Summer Picture (1971-72) had done, twenty years before. There is a similarity in the crisp fullness of shape the girls' bodies assume, and both paintings are also much concerned with the fall of light, the intensity of colour and the distortions of perspective.
When the painter Anthony Eyton asked Uglow if he thought he would be affected by his experience of visiting Egypt (he went in 1991 and 1992, and once again later), he replied 'only through osmosis'. But in fact he did bring back a human skull which he then painted (between 1994 and 1997, thus overlapping with Pyramid), a rather more tangible proof of influence.
Uglow had long admired the solidity and stillness, the monumentality and detachment of Egyptian sculpture, and his response to the physical presence of the pyramids was a passionate confirmation of this. Back in his London studio, he painted his own interpretation of the experience. By obscuring the model's head in shadow, the person-quality of the image is reduced, helping the viewer to focus on the idea animating the picture – namely the shape of the pyramid. However, the humanity of the figure remains inescapable: this is a precise rendition of a very particular body, even though the sitter's identity is hidden. There is thus a potent dialogue going on between the individual and the universal, as well as between the flesh tones of the figure and the green and ochre setting, and between the inscribed circles and squares of the studio set-up and the irregularly rounded shapes of a human body. These various formal relationships help to account for the lasting effect of what is a particularly vibrant image in Uglow's oeuvre.
Dr Andrew Lambirth is the author of the acclaimed recent study of Uglow's life and work, The Uglow Papers (2025).