Lot 66: GARY HUME

signed, titled and dated 1994 on the reverse

household gloss paint on canvas

152.5 by 129.5cm.<br><br>59 1/2 by 20 1/2 in.

B. 1962

Tanya Grunert Gallery, Cologne

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

"What's there and what isn't has been a preoccupation of Hume's in some form or other since the start of his career... Familiar icons of childhood... normally confined to storybooks or to the borders of the decorative arts, claim a rightful place as subjects for painting, due as much to the panache with which they are handled as to their compelling graphic sophistication. Like painting itself, considered by some to be irredeemably past it, Hume brings these subjects back from the brink, revitalising them and in doing so, reinventing painting as a live and exploratory artform. As his career has developed, he has steadily discarded the baggage of painting theory, freeing himself to take on subjects made difficult by our own attitudes towards them: romance, beauty, fame and emptiness." (Andrea Rose in Exhibition Catalogue, Venice, British Pavilion, XLVIII Venice Biennale, 1999, p. 3)

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said "What a good boy am I!"