101 Days of Lockdown Art

Grey Turner Elliott

Description

Elliott Turner designs events, exhibitions and conferences for productions and companies all over the world. As Covid hit, to limit the spread of this virulent pandemic these activities became totally restricted. On the 19th March '20 he was working at Park Display in Bicester. As a diabetic needing to isolate, he left the office for what he thought would be just a few weeks. Then on 23rd March 2020 to find an activity to occupy himself he decided to mow the lawn. The garden refuse bin was full so he piled the grass clippings at the end of the garden. The clippings looked like a melting snowman, so he put some sticks in with a pair of gloves on, a scarf and a carrot nose with his Panama completed the picture. He posted it saying: 'This self-isolation is a piece of piss but I think my grass snowman is melting!' On the 24th March the bin was emptied, so he filled the bin and put the hat, scarf and carrots on the bin posting: 'To all of you worried about Mr Grassy the snowman, he's now self-isolating.' On the 25th March he power-washed the patio, scoring the letters RIP in the dirt in front of the bin: 'Sad news everyone. Mr Grassy didn't stay in the bin so now they came and took him away. RIP Mr Grassy.' On the 26th March Elliott's eldest son took a photograph of him praying beside the lawnmower in a recreation of Millet's 'The Angelus' and posted: 'So today we held a quiet service for Grassy, to follow the Covid19 direction there was just one in attendance, sorry Millet.' Little was he to know that there were to follow 101 days of art recreations in homage to favourite works of art and to artists whose work he has always admired. This book is a loving tribute to my wonderful mother and how hard she worked trying to educate my brother, sister and I into the joys of art.

Sujets

• History of art

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839524516
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

101 Days of Lockdown Art
Elliott Grey Turner
First published 2022
Copyright © Elliott Turner 2022
The right of Elliott Turner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and The Self-Publishing Partnership Ltd , 10b Greenway Farm, Bath Rd, Wick, nr. Bath BS30 5RL
www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN paperback book: 978-1-83952-450-9 ISBN hardback book: 978-1-83952-452-3 ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-451-6
Internal design by Smart Monkey Design [e-mail]
Printed and bound in the UK
This book is printed on FSC certified paper
101 Days of Lockdown Art
Elliott Grey Turner
Contents
101 Days Foreword
Day 1 The Angelus
Day 2 American Gothic
Day 3 The Ambassadors
Day 4 La Pietà
Day 5 The Creation of Adam
Day 6 Elvis I and II
Day 7 Mr and Mrs Andrews
Day 8 In the Car
Day 9 The Piano Tuner
Day 10 Bathers at Asnières
Day 11 The Last Supper
Day 12 Son of Man
Day 13 Napoleon Crossing the Alps
Day 14 Le Penseur
Day 15 Feast for the Eyes
Day 16 Frida on White Bench
Day 17 V.I. Lenin on the Tribune
Day 18 Angel of the North
Day 19 The Old Guitarist
Day 20 The Ancient of Days
Day 21 The Laughing Cavalier
Day 22 The Ecumenical Council
Day 23 Gazing Ball (Little Boy)
Day 24 Augustus from Prima
Day 25 Pierrot
Day 26 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
Day 27 Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope
Day 28 Portrait of Innocent X
Day 29 Tutankhamun’s gold burial mask
Day 30 Joseph the Carpenter
Day 31 Portrait of Winston Churchill
Day 32 The Astronomer
Day 33 Man in a Cape
Day 34 0% Interest in People
Day 35 Saturn Devouring His Son
Day 36 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
Day 37 Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia Von Harden
Day 38 Smoking Dildo
Day 39 The Highlander
Day 40 Edward Hopper – Self-portrait
Day 41 Portrait of Eric Gill
Day 42 Reverend Harry Edwards
Day 43 Green Lady (or Chinese Girl)
Day 44 Young Sick Bacchus
Day 45 Angel Playing the Lute
Day 46 The Night Wanderer
Day 47 Le Voyage dans la Lune
Day 48 Liberty Enlightening the World
Day 49 The 48-year-old Man
Day 50 Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti)
Day 51 “Mad” Frankie Fraser
Day 52 Help
Day 53 The Black Venus (Josephine Baker)
Day 54 David with the Head of Goliath
Day 55 Cupid as a Link Boy
Day 56 Charles Grey 2nd Earl Grey
Day 57 Portrait of JFK
Day 58 St Sebastian
Day 59 Portrait of Ambrose Vollard
Day 60 Diptyque Satyrique
Day 61 Portrait of Dylan Thomas
Day 62 Portrait of Dante
Day 63 Chasseur à l’affût (or Hunter on the lookout)
Day 64 A Doctor Examining Urine
Day 65 The Poet Gallus Dreaming
Day 66 Seated Man
Day 67 The Cat in the Hat
Day 68 Colonel T.E. Lawrence
Day 69 Admiral Boué de Lapeyrère
Day 70 Death of Harold
Day 71 I Want You (U. S. Army recruitment poster)
Day 72 The Mad Hatter
Day 73 Bellboy
Day 74 Rabbit Fire
Day 75 The Peasant and the Nest Robber
Day 76 Self-Portrait as Cleopatra
Day 77 The Desperate Man
Day 78 The Temptation of St Anthony
Day 79 Youth Making a Face
Day 80 Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les Misérables)
Day 81 Flying Devil
Day 82 Reflection with Two Children (Self-Portrait)
Day 83 Modest Mussorgsky
Day 84 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
Day 85 Keying Up: The Court Jester
Day 86 Captain Haddock
Day 87 Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat
Day 88 Altar of Memory
Day 89 Death of Marat
Day 90 The Little Prince
Day 91 Glory to the Soviet People (or Long Live the Soviet People)
Day 92 The Climax
Day 93 Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne
Day 94 The Weird Sisters
Day 95 Cerne Abbas Giant
Day 96 Die Brennende Fahne (or Lazarus Wartet or The Origin of Singing)
Day 97 Hand With Reflecting Sphere
Day 98 Flirt Biscuits (a Point of Sale poster)
Day 99 The Last Judgement (triptych detail)
Day 100 Lady Penelope & Parker (from Thunderbirds)
Day 101 Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
101 Days Thank you...
Acknowledgements
101 DAYS
Foreword
Elliott Grey Turner
2022

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic
This book is dedicated to my parents – my mother, who took us all over Europe to educate us in the creative arts, and my father, who tolerated this endless trek. We queued round the block to see the first day of the Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. The same year we went to the Louvre to see the Georges de La Tour exhibition in the Musée de l’Orangerie. We toured Chartres, Nantes, Salisbury, Durham and many of the other great cathedrals.
My father passed away ten years ago, but my mother lasted until earlier this year when she died at her care home in Northumberland, bedridden and locked into her Alzheimer’s, no longer able to enjoy the love for creativity that was her lifelong passion. It is a deep irony that the care home was totally locked down while she was locked down within her body, her mind restricted, fettered by this hateful condition.
“Gird your loins and buckle up, ’cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride…”
The book is also dedicated to my wonderful family – my wife Jackie and my two sons, Griff and Ieuan, without whose extensive wardrobe, photographic skills and tolerance for the household disturbance, these pictures would never have been produced.
I did my very best to make sure that all of the information I included in this book was an accurate reflection of the real lives and history of the various artists and events. I researched by checking multiple sources on the internet. I did not simply rely on Wikipedia, as wonderful as that is, but used the British Library, Encyclopaedia Britannica and Art Net, to name but a few. I have not quoted the sources individually as the work is all in the public domain so should be accurate. For all artists who lived over seventy years ago, I have included the originals alongside the reproductions. However, to avoid copyright conflicts, I have excluded any original work by artists still living or who died less than seventy years ago. I have attached the web links for you to research all the art and strongly advise you to look up the pictures and the wonderful artists so you can discover for yourself just how remarkable some of this work is.
By day, Elliott Turner is an exhibition, event, conference, theatre, TV, interiors, showroom and film designer. He has worked all over the globe using PhotoShop for producing designs, which was to come in very handy for these reproductions. If this book proves popular, I have my second 101 recreations ready to publish in Return to Days of Lockdown Art .
DAY 1
The Angelus
Jean Francois Millet
1859
The fourth-century theologian Saint Jerome said, “Fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum” , which roughly translates as “the devil makes work for idle hands” . This book is the work of someone with a lot of time on their hands.
My journey begins on 19th March, fearing the news about this raging Covid-19 pandemic and how people should isolate at home, including those who suffer from certain conditions such as, like myself, type 2 diabetes. I decided to leave work at Park Display Ltd in Bicester, where I had been on a long-term contract on and off for several years. I left for what I thought would just be a few weeks. Who would have thought that it would be more than eighteen months that my profession was put on hold as events, exhibitions and conferences were completely banned in favour of containing the virus.
On the 20th March we sat watching the news as Boris announced plans for restricting movements.
On Monday 23rd March, Boris announced a complete nationwide lockdown, so I decided I had to find ways to occupy my time constructively – cleaning, decorating and tidying up the house and garden.
“This social isolation is a piece of piss, but I think my grass snowman is melting.”
So I cut the grass, but the green bin was full so I had to pile the clippings to one side. Something about it looked to me like a melting snowman. I stuck some sticks into the pile, put some gloves on the end, put my old Panama hat on top with a scarf, a carrot for a nose and took a photo. I posted a comment on Facebook. “This social isolation is a piece of piss, but I think my grass snowman is melting.”
The following day, 24th March, they emptied the bin so I filled it with the cuttings, posting a picture of the bin with the hat on top, the scarf and gloves poking over the edge, saying, “To all of you worried about Grassy the snowman, he’s now self-isolating. We shall be topping him up with clippings.”
On the 25th March, I power-washed the patio and decided to write RIP in the grub, posting the picture and the words, “Sad news, everyone. Mr Grassy didn’t stay in the bin so now they came and took him away. RIP, Mr Grassy.”
On 26th March, I posed in the garden with my lawnmower, posting a picture with the words, “So today we held a quiet service for Grassy; to follow the Covid direction, there was just one in attendance. Sorry, Millet.”
Thus began Day 1 recreating works of art – little did I know it was to last for 101 days, five days a week, until the lockdown was eased.
https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire_id/the-angelus-3048.html

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic
DAY 2
American Gothic
Grant Wood
1930
Last week I ended with a homage to Mr Grassy by evoking memories of the Angelus , an oil painting by Jean Francois Millet completed between 1857–1859. I have decided to continue this theme by reimagining some of the great works of art, revisioned