Exhibition of Early Drawings & Etchings by Jake and Dinos Chapman

Written by Bertram Kindler Sunday, 13 December 2009 21:43

HASTINGS, UK - This comprehensive retrospective exhibition provides a rare glimpse into the early talent and wit of the Chapman brothers. This exhibition, their first at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery will feature a complete portfolio of etchings from the 'Gigantic Fun' series, drawings and some early animal sculptures. Jake and Dinos Chapman were brought up in Cheltenham and Hastings and both studied at the Royal College of Art before deciding to work together. On exhibition 19 December through 14 March, 2010.

Emerging under the label of Young British Artists in the 1990s, the Chapmans' art examines with searing wit and energy, contemporary politics, religion and morality.

Also on display in the Long Gallery, a chance to see a selection of Jake and Dinos portrait paintings titled ‘One Day you will no longer be loved’, where the Chapmans have doctored anonymous aristocratic portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries with grossly deformed and morbid features, essentially questioning the legacy and vanity of portraiture itself. These works are displayed within a larger portrait display from the museum’s permanent collection.

Hastings Museum

Hastings Museum contains a rich and exotic mixture of fine paintings and china, the cultures of other lands, well-known personalities such as John Logie Baird and Robert Tressell, and a contrasting view of local wildlife today and as it would have been 150 million years ago.

There are plenty of special features for children, with fossils that transform into dinosaurs, prehistoric crocodiles and fish, a diorama of local animals and birds, Native American Galleries complete with tipi and buffalo, and a display on Hastings born conservationist, Grey Owl.

The most spectacular part of the Museum is the magnificent Durbar Hall constructed for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886 as part of an Indian Palace.  It now contains displays relating to the Indian subcontinent, and to the life of the Brassey family with artefacts collected on their voyages around the world in the 19th century.

Visit the Hastings Museum & Art Gallery at : http://www.hmag.org.uk/home/default.aspx