Sue Dunkley British, 1942-2022
42 1/8 x 50 inches
Further images
The source photograph of this work depicts Gilbert & George performing their famous singing sculpture ‘Underneath the Arches’ at the beginning of their career. This performance can be viewed here on YouTube.
A similar version with a pink background has been placed in the collection of Pallant House, Chichester.
Provenance
Estate of the artistExhibitions
London, The Mayor Gallery, Sue Dunkley, 21 Sep -3 Nov 2023, ill. p. 27Literature
The source photograph of this work depicts Gilbert & George performing their famous singing sculpture ‘Underneath theArches’ at the beginning of their career. This performance can be viewed here on YouTube.
A similar version with a pink background has been recently acquired by Pallant House, Chichester.
Taking as her subject contemporary icons of celebrity at the time such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, the female body and the male gaze, Dunkley's paintings are striking works of colour and cultural commentary in the Pop era.
Often autobiographical (...) her work explores violence, sexuality, and the role of women in changing eras.
Dunkley lived and worked in a large beloved family house in Islington for over 50 years. Surrounded by artists, musicians and actors, her parties were legendary, and friends often spoke of her sense of humour with regular visitors including neighbours Rogers Waters and Howard Hodgkin. During this period, she repeatedly painted the artist duo Gilbert and George, fascinated by their ‘stone’ like appearance, masculinity and violence are presented along with the Kennedy assassinations.
Outspoken, beautiful, young, and dressed in Mary Quant, Dunkley appeared in fashionable magazines such as Nova in 1966 and was spoken about in the same breath as Twiggy as part of the new, swinging, cultural set at the time. Collectors and friends included Harold Pinter, Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie and Julie Christie, who she became close with after working as an advisor for her role in The Railway Station Man where she portrayed a painter.
Dunkley throughout the early 70s exhibited annually with the artists collective the London Group and had her first solo exhibition in 1973 at Bolsover Street Gallery, London. A series of well-received exhibitions at the Thumb Gallery in Soho followed in the late 70s and early 80s. Works joined public collections at Leicester Museum and elsewhere, but Dunkley was uncompromising about her art and refused to take direction.
Since The Mayor Gallery solo exhibition in 2023, her work is held at Tate Britain, Pallant House and Wolverhampton Art Gallery as well as international private collections including Fondation Gander pour l'Art.
Publications
Taking as her subject contemporary icons of celebrity at the time such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, the female body and the male gaze, Dunkley's paintings are striking works of colour and cultural commentary in the Pop era.
Often autobiographical (...) her work explores violence, sexuality, and the role of women in changing eras.
Dunkley lived and worked in a large beloved family house in Islington for over 50 years. Surrounded by artists, musicians and actors, her parties were legendary, and friends often spoke of her sense of humour with regular visitors including neighbours Rogers Waters and Howard Hodgkin. During this period, she repeatedly painted the artist duo Gilbert and George, fascinated by their ‘stone’ like appearance, masculinity and violence are presented along with the Kennedy assassinations.
Outspoken, beautiful, young, and dressed in Mary Quant, Dunkley appeared in fashionable magazines such as Nova in 1966 and was spoken about in the same breath as Twiggy as part of the new, swinging, cultural set at the time. Collectors and friends included Harold Pinter, Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie and Julie Christie, who she became close with after working as an advisor for her role in The Railway Station Man where she portrayed a painter.
Dunkley throughout the early 70s exhibited annually with the artists collective the London Group and had her first solo exhibition in 1973 at Bolsover Street Gallery, London. A series of well-received exhibitions at the Thumb Gallery in Soho followed in the late 70s and early 80s. Works joined public collections at Leicester Museum and elsewhere, but Dunkley was uncompromising about her art and refused to take direction.
Since The Mayor Gallery solo exhibition in 2023, her work is held at Tate Britain, Pallant House and Wolverhampton Art Gallery as well as international private collections including Fondation Gander pour l'Art.