On Deck
Morley, who studied at the Royal College of Art in London in the 1950s, was fascinated by the Abstract Expressionists then working in New York, where he decided to move permanently in 1958. By the 1960s his interest shifted to the realism of Pop Art. Wishing to emphasize the artificiality of the camera’s vision, he began to paint highly photorealistic canvases wherein every inch of the surface was accorded the same degree of detail and focus. The source of this image of bourgeois leisure is a brochure for a Dutch cruise line. Morley used a grid to systematically enlarge the image, often painting upside down in order to reproduce it as accurately as possible and to avoid the addition of his own aesthetic distortions or stylizations.
Artwork Details
- Title: On Deck
- Artist: Malcolm Morley (American (born England) London 1931–2018 New York)
- Date: 1966
- Medium: Magna on canvas
- Dimensions: 83 3/4 × 63 3/4 in. (212.7 × 161.9 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. S. Brooks Barron, 1980
- Object Number: 1980.289
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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