Barrie Cooke
, British, 1931-2014
Title
Big Hot TubDate2005
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
185 x 185 cm
Credit LinePurchased, 2017
Object numberNGI.2017.16
DescriptionThis painting is the largest iteration of a motif that Cooke addressed several times. The model for the figure is understood to be Cooke’s fellow artist and friend Camille Souter. Though compositionally conventional in the sense that it features a dominant figure in essentially real space, the painting differs radically from Cooke’s more visceral, naturalistic nudes. Pared back, both in detail and colour range, and physically imposing, it marks a more abstracted and reductive approach to figurative painting than is in evidence in the artist’s earlier work.ProvenancePurchased, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 2017Exhibition HistoryBarrie Cooke – Works from the Studio, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 2017