“Peter Randall-Page’s response to
Soane’s elegant building, with its implicit tribute to the
Gallery’s Founders, is considered and quietly moving.” Stephen
Deuchar, Art Fund
Dulwich Picture Gallery will begin its 2011
bicentenary celebrations in September this year with the
installation of its first ever acquisition of a piece of
contemporary sculpture: Walking the Dog. The
sculpture by Peter Randall Page, a leading British sculptor is
influenced by Sir John Soane’s ‘running dog’ pattern visible on the
external walls of the Gallery. It will be the first sculpture to be
included in the Gallery’s permanent collection.
Creating the work
Randall-Page spent time at the Gallery, drawing and
taking photographs, getting to know the building and the
surrounding landscape. He was impressed by the simple proportions
of the Gallery, designed by Sir John Soane in 1811, and was
particularly struck by the ‘running dog’ pattern that Soane had
used as a decorative feature on the outside of the Gallery.
This pattern related very closely to the naturally occurring
patterns that have always informed his work. Other sculptural
motifs on the Gallery – urns, and sarcophagi - occur in threes. In
creating Walking the Dog Peter Randall-Page chose to echo
these by selecting three boulders.
The sculpture has been presented to the Dulwich
Picture Gallery as a gift by membership charity the Art Fund.
Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, said “I can think of no
better way to celebrate the bicentenary of the Dulwich Picture
Gallery - that unique gem in the world of museums - than with the
acquisition of a work by one of the most distinctive sculptors
working in this country today.”
Randall-Page had his first solo exhibition in 1980 at
the Gardner Centre, University of Sussex, and has shown regularly
since then. Many of his works are in public collections, including
the British Museum, the Contemporary Art Society, and the Tate
Gallery.
The Art Fund has previously helped Dulwich
Picture Gallery to buy Ideal View of Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1820
by JM Gandy (1772 – 1843) and Portrait of Jacob de Witt by Gerrit
van Honhorst (1590 – 1656).