Claudette Johnson, Child Painting

Child Painting, 2020
Edition of 40 (plus artist and school proofs)
Signed and numbered by the artist
Materials: Lithograph
Dimensions: 76 x 49.5 cm
Print is unframed

‘The print features an ink study of my three-year-old granddaughter on the day that she “assisted” me in the studio. She was helping me to paint primer onto a large sheet of paper that we had taped to the studio floor. She was dressed in a pair of my studio overalls and she sang a paint song as she worked. Her pleasure and concentration as she worked illustrated for me, the special alchemy of painting. It makes time stop and gives us permission to play.’ Claudette Johnson, 2020

Launched in 2018 by The Hepworth Wakefield, School Prints is an ambitious five-year project to engage every primary school child in Wakefield District with contemporary art. Each year, the participating schools are gifted a set of limited-edition prints by leading contemporary artists for display in school and are supported with an in-depth engagement programme led by local artists to encourage creativity across the curriculum.

Nicola Freeman, Director of Engagement & Learning at The Hepworth Wakefield, said: “The prominence and urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 has brought into sharp focus the lack of diversity across the arts and museum sector. As part of a number of initiatives to address this in all areas of our work at The Hepworth Wakefield, we are reshaping our Continuing Professional Development programmes for teachers and all future work with schools to support the teaching of black histories across the curriculum, starting by making this campaign the focus of School Prints 2021. We are delighted that this project is supported by such fantastic artists who have so generously given their time and creativity to help us in this endeavour.”

Claudette Johnson said: “I thought it important to support the project because I remember, as a school child, gazing at the Bruegel, Picasso and Canaletto prints that hung along the corridors of my secondary school. I took it for granted that art would be available to look at and think about as I moved around the school. I believe this should be every child’s birthright.”

School Prints is inspired by a ground-breaking scheme set up in the 1940s where artists, including Henri Matisse, Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso, were commissioned to create prints specifically for schools to allow children to have direct access to high-quality art. Artists who have taken part in The Hepworth Wakefield’s revival of the scheme include Fiona Banner, Sir Peter Blake, Sir Michael Craig-Martin, Martin Creed, Jeremy Deller, Anthea Hamilton, Helen Marten, Haroon Mirza, Laure Prouvost, Linder Sterling, Francis Upritchard, Richard Wentworth and Rose Wylie.

School Prints is supported by Eridge Trust and The Curwen Studios.

School Prints is supported by Eridge Trust.

Claudette Johnson (b. 1959, Manchester; lives and works in London)

Johnson is adept at capturing her sitters’ physical attitudes, by turns defiant and wary, funny and challenging, and often with a tender intimacy. Her formal mastery in framing the figure is sharply observed and in conversation with the histories of figuration and the black body in European art. She explores how women in particular occupy space and how the figure can ‘reach out to the boundaries of the frame… sometimes existing beyond.’ Working at large scale, the artist has developed a technique of drawing that she has compared to dancing and jazz in its stretching, rhythm and moments of improvisation.

Recent solo exhibitions include I Came to Dance, Modern Art Oxford (2019) with a forthcoming show at Hollybush Gardens, London, in 2021. Johnson also participated in Close: Drawn Portraits, The Drawing Room, London (2018) and The Place Is Here, South London Gallery, London, and Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2017). Her work is held in collections including Tate, Arts Council, British Council and the Rennie Collection Vancouver, BC.

Looking to spread the cost? Pay £60 a month for 10 months with an Own Art interest free loan.

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