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Life Room
Esther modelling in the ' Life Room' at Newington Green meeting house In December I will be holding an exhibition of some of the paintings that I made this year at the Newington Green meeting house entitled ‘Life Room’ . The exhibition will run from Thursday 11 th to Friday 19 th December inclusive. The models I have painted were all seated in the ‘Mary Wollstonecraft’ room - which used to house the Sunday School of the historic Unitarian chapel and is now home to Newingt
Richard Crawford
Oct 23, 20252 min read
Are life classes political?
It was Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) who proposed the idea that some forms of ‘civil society’ can also be what he called, “political sites...
Richard Crawford
Sep 16, 20254 min read
The Academic Nude: response and resistance
In the art world - as in our culture at large - historical precedent plays an important role in determining the forms of representation...
Richard Crawford
Jul 17, 20254 min read
Esther Bunting's story of life modelling - Part 2
Lucy. (image courtesy of Esther Bunting) It might have been Pratts (most excellent name for a life drawing group ever) in Twickenham...
Richard Crawford
Jun 9, 20257 min read
A Story of Life Modelling by Esther Bunting
Esther painted by Celia Montague. image courtesy of Esther Bunting Back in 2007 I began life modelling for a handful of artists my sister...
Richard Crawford
May 23, 20255 min read
Len McComb: the figure as energy, surface and form.
Len McComb taught me life drawing whilst I was studying for my Art Teachers Certificate at Goldsmith’s College in 1980, and later at the...
Richard Crawford
May 23, 20253 min read
The Misses Pettigrew. Part 1
Hetty and Lily Pettigrew c.1890 Wikimedia Commons. The Pettigrew sisters, Hetty, Rose and Lily worked as artists’ models in the late 19th...
Richard Crawford
May 8, 20253 min read
How did Academic artists learn to paint the figure?
When I asked Google AI “How did artists learn to paint the figure at the Royal Academy?’ it came up with the following answer: “Artists...
Richard Crawford
Mar 28, 20252 min read
Why did some Art Schools give up life drawing in the 1960's?
Change swept through the Art school sector in the 1960’s following the 'First Report of the National Advisory Council on Art Education'...
Richard Crawford
Mar 28, 20253 min read
Dreaming in Public: An actor’s thoughts on life modelling by Nora
“The body is always a metaphor or rather a series of metaphors. It’s always trying to find how does one show what you can see, and that...
Richard Crawford
Mar 28, 20255 min read
Angela Santana
Angela Santana’s reconstructed images of women’s bodies differ radically in form from the classical tradition in which the figure is...
Richard Crawford
Mar 28, 20252 min read
How five painters use life drawings.
There are two main ways that painters have used life drawing to support their painting practice. Firstly, as a way to work out ideas for...
Richard Crawford
Mar 28, 20252 min read
Life drawing can be a means of breaking a habit of seeing.
We all know what a person looks like – a head, body and legs arranged in descending order - and we would be surprised to see a person...
Richard Crawford
Mar 27, 20253 min read
Two 19th century artists who departed from the academic tradition
In the 19th century, Academic artists were taught to depict the figure accurately and with a high degree of detail – what might be called...
Richard Crawford
Mar 27, 20252 min read
Life classes at the Newington Green Meeting House
I have been running life classes at the Meeting House since July 2023. They are held weekly in the Mary Wollstonecraft room, which...
Richard Crawford
Mar 27, 20253 min read
My painting of Nora gets entangled with Alice Neel's style
A portrait by Alice Neel I went to see the Alice Neel exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery in Islington at the beginning of March at...
Richard Crawford
Mar 27, 20252 min read
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