Women of spirit celebrated in London Art Fair 2016…

Blue Velvet. Pastel, conté and ink. By Eileen Cooper RA. Courtesy Rabley Contemporary.

Women of spirit celebrated in London Art Fair 2016 display of intense drawings by Eileen Cooper RA

By James Brewer

Works by one of the leading British contemporary artists, Eileen Cooper RA, attracted constant attention at the 28th edition of London Art Fair, from January 20 to 24 2016.

The Royal Academician is one of the most distinguished personalities in her field, and her works are among the most easily recognised – which on this occasion was saying something given that the Fair featured work by more than 1, 000 artists.

Ten of her most recent drawings in various combinations of ink, watercolour, conté (firm pastel), softer pastel, charcoal and gouache were shown prominently by the gallery Rabley Contemporary at a sometimes congested junction in the grand hall of the London Business Design Centre – at the top of the middle stairway, to the left of the big clock.

Constance Spry. Pastel, conte and ink. By Eileen Cooper RA. Courtesy Rabley Contemporary.

Rabley Contemporary, the gallery arm of Wiltshire-based Rabley Drawing Centre, made full use of its Stand G44 location to showcase vibrant examples of Eileen Cooper’s drawings and bronze sculpture.

At home as painter, printmaker and sculptor, Eileen in 2011 became the first woman to be appointed Keeper of the Royal Academy, a post which makes her the Academician responsible for the RA Schools which foster young and emerging talent from around the globe.

She has been a leading figure in British art since the 1980s, and much of her work celebrates intellectually strong and independent women. Among the pieces that follow that path and are on offer from Rabley are Blue Velvet and Constance Spry, both in pastel, conté and ink. Constance Spry (1886-1960) was an educator, social reformer, florist and author who encouraged Britons to beautify their homes using plants and other natural means.

Constance Spry’s passion for botanical enhancement of daily life is echoed in some of the portraiture from Eileen Cooper, and evident in some of her current works, although often the subject figure is boldly drawn without background adornment. The lean figures are individuals, but in another interpretation they might be everywoman, or everyman.

Peaseblossom is in ink, watercolour, conté and pastel; the nude Rosalind in pastel and conté; Orlando ditto; Stems with a young man and woman (lovers?) is in charcoal, ink and gouache on paper; Night Garden, ink pastel and gouache; Rushesink and gouache; Woman with Dog, charcoal on paper.

Some of the booths at London Art Fair

The artist is consistent in her firmness of line, while bringing out the intimacy of her characters and their situations, and making them determined to fill the frame, sometimes in repressed movement. Her style is said to invoke Picasso, Chagall and even Mughal miniatures.

It is not surprising to learn that in a recent series of prints Eileen borrowed from the world of classical and ancient Greece, with references to Diana and Actaeon and other mythological characters. Time and again artists, especially those with sculptural inclinations, reach back to Greek culture of millennia past.

The Rabley website comments that in such prints, the protagonists take centre stage in lucid, playful images of fated lovers – the hunted and the beautiful.

Elected a Royal Academician in 2001, Eileen has her work in several public collections including the Arts Council UK, Royal Collections, the Royal Academy of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The esteem in which she is held resulted in 2015 in a retrospective entitled Hide and Seek in the John Madejski Fine Rooms at the Royal Academy from May to August, followed by a UK tour. Included in the exhibition was a video of her drawing technique so that the viewer could see the stages towards the finished work.

Rabley Drawing Centre was established in 2005. The gallery and drawing school, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, has developed an International reputation for its exhibitions and its range of courses in drawing and printmaking.www.rableydrawingcentre.com