About the artist:

Gerald Laing is a British contemporary artist with a body of work that spans the Pop Movement of the Sixties to his current commitment to representational bronze sculptures. Laing, after graduating from St Martin's School of Art, London in 1964, moved to New York to work with many of the most influential figures of the period; including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana. During this period Laing also met Peter Phillips, a fellow Brit, who was also enjoying burgeoning success. Both Laing and Philips were stuck by arbitrary nature of the 1960s American art market, an environment where novelty ruled. Their unprecedented critique, the Hybrid Project, received rave reviews, it had an article in Time but only one prominent critic recognised it as a critical attack. Returning to Britain in 1969, Laing based himself in Scotland at Kinkell Castle and became actively involved in its reconstruction for the next fours years. His three-dimensional steel sculpture of this period, inspired by the Scottish countryside was described by David Alan Mellor as 'steely, fashionable and stylishly rationalised in its industrial references'. In 1993 the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh staged a retrospective exhibition of his work.[ Laing did a series of anti-war paintings, based primarily on photographs from the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. These paintings were the beginning of his return to pop art. They were followed in 2004 by a series of Amy Whitehouse paintings, as well as a painting of Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss. Born 1936 Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1953 - 55 Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst 1955 - 60 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 1960 - 64 St. Martin's School of Art, London 1964 - 69 Lived and worked in New York 1965 Artist in residence at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, Colorado 1969 - 1970 Rebuilt Kinkell Castle, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland. Civic Trust Award 1970 Established Tapestry Workshop at Kinkell Castle