DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Help

Search

Advanced Search

Find results with:

Add another field

Search by date

to

Searching collections:

Visual Resources Center Digital Image Collection

Add or remove collections

Home The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men,...

Reference URL

Share

Add tags

Comment

Rate

To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed this object, paste this HTML in website

The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men, accompanying text and diagram only.

View Description

Loading content ...

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Back to top

Powered by CONTENTdm®

Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/820/826-49.jpg
Title	The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men, accompanying text and diagram only.
Alternative Title	The Stone Touchers 1.
Creator	Atkinson, Terry (British conceptual artist, born 1939)
Date	1984-1985
Cultural Context	British English European
Style/Period	Conceptual Contemporary Postmodern
Theme	Diagrams Drawings (visual works) Paintings (visual works) Acrylic paintings (visual works) Histories Ideology Social conflict Social issues Social classes Apartheid Empires (sovereign states) Wars Armed conflicts Graveyards Graves Tombstones Cemeteries Military cemeteries (veteran cemeteries) War cemeteries War memorials Memorials Soldiers Military personnel Officers (military officers) Vacations Photographs Families Figurative art Figures (representations) Front views Children (people by age group) Youth Girls Youth Sisters Siblings Daughters Double portraits Portraits Inscriptions Captions Text (layout feature) Words Birthdays Abbreviations Letters (signs) Capital letters Lowercase letters Numbers Numerals Punctuation marks
Subject	Diagrams Drawings Paintings Acrylic paintings History Political issues Apartheid Imperialism Social classes War War casualties Graves Tombs & sepulchral monuments Cemeteries Monuments & memorials Soldiers Military personnel Military officers People associated with military activities Vacations Photographs Families Portraits Portrait paintings Children Girls Youth Posing Inscriptions Names Birthdays Numerals Punctuation Question marks
Description	"Terry Atkinson, like David Hockney, came from a working-class background in Yorkshire, England. However, his affiliations when he eventually moved to London were with Conceptualism rather than Pop. Whilst Conceptualism had been international in orientation, his 1980s output, which dealt with subjects such as class identity and English attitudes to Northern Ireland, seemed to represent a deliberate return to 'local' issues." (Caption, p.221); "Having parted company with the British Art & Language group in the early 1970s, Terry Atkinson had, by the mid-1970s, moved away from their stringent Conceptualism to explore his working-class heritage in a set of 'history paintings'. In his First World War series (c.1974-81) he reinterpreted photographs of troops taken during the Great War, using a strategically 'botched' drawing style and satirical captions. He thereby encoded a critique of the way working-class labor was mobilized for capitalist warfare. By 1984-5 such explorations of ideological undercurrents were brought to bear on family photographs. The Stone Touchers I (1984-5) incorporates an ironically diligent 'copy' of a photograph of Atkinson's children taken during a holiday in northern France. Intrigued by the rows of war graves, they are shown flanking a stone dedicated, according to the 'key' beneath the image [shown in Hopkins, p.220], to a South African infantryman. In a mock-poetic caption Atkinson asks them: 'Do you think God is a person? If he is, is he a he? If he is, is he black or white… is he a South African, or an Argentinian …?' Britain's faded imperialism had recently been rekindled by the Falklands War, and South African apartheid was a pressing issue. Atkinson thus presented his suntanned children as inextricably (if unknowingly) implicated in such events." (Excerpt, pp. 219, 221); The full "mock-poetic caption" to this painting, as indicated on p.220 of Hopkins, reads: "Ruby and Amber in The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men. Dear Ruby and Amber, Do you think God is a person? If he is, is he a he? If he is, is he black or white, or brown or yellow, or pink or orange or blue or red, or green or purple….? Do you think God is a dissident? Or is he a South African, Or an Argentinian, or an Anglo-Saxon, etc.? Do you think he's the best knower? If he is a she do you think all the he's would admit she's the best knower?"
Location Depicted	France France, Northern
Material	Acrylic on canvas Acrylic paint Paint Canvas
Measurements	213 x 152 cm
Technique	Painting (image-making) Acrylic painting (technique) Drawing (image-making) Writing (processes)
Inscription	The diagram text reads: Left tombstone: Known unto God a soldier of the Great War; Right tombstone: Known unto God a soldier of the Great War; Center tombstone: SPRINGBOK / 24, LANCE CPL C VANBLERK / 1ST REGT. SOUTH AFRICAN INFANTRY/ 18 JULY, 1916; Girl on left: RUBY ATKINSON / BORN 27.9.75 / KNOWN UNTO SS 20; Girl on right: AMBER ATKINSON / BORN 22.5.78 / KNOWN UNTO CRUISE
Work Type	Diagrams Drawings Paintings Acrylic paintings
Repository	Private collection (Vancouver, Canada)
Source	Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford History of Art. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (p.220, fig.114)
Rights	Photograph reproduced in Hopkins courtesy: Gimpel Fils.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 826-49.jpg
Rating

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men,...

The Stone Touchers I, Ruby and Amber In The Gardens of their old Empire history-dressed men, accompanying text and diagram only.

Description

Tags

Comments