As one of the original Pop artists, Gerald Laing produced some of the most significant works of the British Pop movement, and today continues to hold his rightful place as one of the most important artists of his generation. Laing first came to prominence in London in the early 60s, where he pioneered the painting of enormous canvases based on newspaper photographs of models, astronauts and film stars. His 1962 portrait of Brigitte Bardot is considered his most iconic work of the period and regularly features in major Pop retrospectives alongside ‘Lincoln Convertible’ from 1964, a commemoration of the assassination of JFK. 

From 1969 for the next 30 years, Laing concentrated on an incredible body of sculptural work, which included many high-profile public commissions, including the Twickenham Stadium figures and the bronze bas-relief twin dragons at each of the five exits of the City of London’s Bank station.

Since 2003, Laing’s career came full circle, as he returned to the style of painting he had abandoned in the 1960s, using Pop imagery to shame the perpetrators of war crimes at Abu Ghraib and the war in Iraq. Laing had returned to iconic images which distill the essence of our era, including paintings and screenprint editions created with Artizan Editions, depicting Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham, Amy Winehouse and Jean Harlow (published by St. Pancras Editions).

Gerald Laing passed away peacefully at his home in Scotland on the 23rd November 2011.