Poles Apart

Derek Jarman's Poles Apart, comes at the end of a period of a little over a decade's worth of geometrical, abstracted, stripped-down landscapes. They varied in size from about 19 by 51.5 cm. to 178 by 183 cm. Whilst many were in oil or acrylic on canvas (as this one is) other smaller ones, produced in 1976/7, were engraved on slate. Stemming from an early interest in works by Paul Nash, Giorgio de Chirico and Rene Magritte, Jarman produced landscapes throughout his life. In the 1960s and 1970s these landscapes (Sand base; In the shadow of the sun, Burning the pyramids, Inspiration of the megaliths and Avebury series No 4 in the Museum and Art Gallery Collection at Northampton) were also influenced by an interest in archaeology, Avebury and other historic sites, and classical and Egyptian influences. Poles Apart is one of the last large scale paintings that Jarman produced as his time and interests were devoted to film projects rather than painting, which he only returned to in his later years, culminating in his final large biographical and landscape paintings, in the 1990s.

We are very grateful to Roger Wollen, co-curator of Derek Jarman: - A Portrait, Barbican Art Gallery, London with the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne and tour, 1996 and Editor of the book of the same name, Thames and Hudson, 1996.