Laing’s early work was concerned with structure and geometry and in the 1970s he produced a number of stylised heads, busts and figures in which his subjects were transformed by his own objectives and preconceptions. The move towards expressive simplification, not to say abstraction, had been a keynote of modern British sculpture since the early years of the twentieth century; in sculpture, as in painting, the traditional search for truthful representation was challenged by new concerns and discoveries, including that of so-called ‘primitive’ art from other continents. Laing has subsequently described his art of the 1970s as ‘self-conscious’ and he has moved away from this approach, responding more directly to his models and producing more straightforwardly representative images. Though he lives in Inverness, several of his 1990s works can be seen in public places in London. These include a portrait bust of Sir Paul Getty (1932-2003) at the National Gallery, Ten Dragons at Bank underground station and Four Rugby Players on the Rowland Hill Gate at the Twickenham Stadium.

Gerald Laing, 1936-2011

Gerald Laing Born on 11 February in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1936. Laing was a prominent British artist of his time. Prior to his career in the arts, Laing attended the Royal Military College Sandhurst and served in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. He then quit the army to pursue a career as a painter in London. He became well-known as a student at Saint Martin's School of Art in the early 1960s and spent the majority of the decade in New York. His paintings of movie stars, drag queens, and other pop culture icons establish him as a significant figure in both the British and American Pop art movements. His art leaned towards the abstract and sculptural, which were popular in New York during the 1960s. In 1969, he relocated to the Scottish Highlands, which inspired him to use more substantial forms and rugged materials in his artwork. Laing's style shifted to clay modelling and bronze casting in 1973, propelling him to recognition as one of the country's top figurative sculptors. He returned to his initial iconography of twenty-first-century icons in the early 2000s.