INTIMACY AND MORTALITY: FINER’S PEOPLE
Robin Gibson

This article is reproduced from the catalogue:
STEPHEN FINER - Paintings
published by Art Space Gallery
to coincide with the exhibition: 2 July - 31 July 2004

view the Exhibition

Stephen Finer is reluctant to talk about his work except in the most practical of terms (‘that one took me a very long time… I don’t know why…’). The little whitewashed studio is freckled with splashes of colour and light as these new, mostly small works jostle for my attention. I can probably find some general drift in style and execution that represents a development in his work from the last exhibition. It is perhaps only the inclusion of the small dark torso from the 1980s (Naked woman lying) that gives me the illusion that there is some progression in the work from dark to light. The most recent in a series of portraits of Lord Shawcross (1996) is also painted in the steely greys and fierce colours that I associate with Finer’s work of the 1980s. It is perhaps his most powerful portrait yet of the distinguished elder statesman and positively bristles with character and life. Shifts in Finer’s painting, however, are more subtle than a mere change of palette so I begin looking for other kinds of visual evidence to find out what has been going on in the canvasses that are precariously balanced round the room in front of me.

There are some small postcard-sized watercolours, mostly in
monochrome that are evidently a departure. Some of them, like
Seated woman and Face have more obvious elements of 'drawing’ in them that are accentuated by the lack of colour and relatively economical application of the (for Finer) new medium. It is not only the switch in scale, therefore, that allows a subtly different change in the way these works can be read. The nude Seated woman has an almost old-masterish, Rembrandtesque spontaneity and immediacy about it, a new slant on one of Finer’s most enduring subjects. The androgynous Face has a monumental quality and dignity which might, despite its scale, suggest some colossal Greek or even Oceanic head. Finer expects our reading of his paintings to be subjective, but even the title, Face, denotes an enormous change in approach from an artist who has never previously ventured anything more specific than Head.

From the face, Finer moves even closer into his subject with his study of an eye. I am reminded that, in the mid-eighteenth century, one of the byways of British portraiture was a mercifully short-lived fashion for miniatures of individual eyes. These horribly realistic little objects arose, ostensibly, from the belief that the eye was the mirror of the soul, and usually depicted the eye of a loved one. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that similar, though post-Freudian intentions, were at the back of Finer’s mind when he began the painting. But what an eye! ‘Eye of the storm’ might seem more appropriate as the thickly applied pigment draws us into a Kokoschkaesque frenzy, down into the bottomless vortex of the iris. This is the work which had taken Finer many months to resolve.

As a record of his reaction to the subject, it denotes a willingness to come to terms with subject matter that for him, is entirely new. In the wonderfully suggestive (and posthumous) portrait of architect Sir Denys Lasdun, the movement and character implicit in the half-profile are again stabilised by a large brushstroke, here suggesting rather than describing the left eye. In a portrait of Marlene Dietrich, Finer delineates, with calligraphic delicacy, the heavy false eyelashes that were a key weapon in the aging actress’s defences against advancing old age. This is Finer’s most recent portrait of the film star turned cabaret artiste and, catching her characteristic gesture of the outstretched arm and her sagging lurexclad bosom, seems a more substantial memorial than the first sparkling head he painted as long ago as 1988.

Lasdun, Dietrich, Bowie, Shawcross, Garland, all names to conjure with, but all now part of the openly autobiographical programme which is emerging in Finer’s paintings. Twenty years ago, Finer would have suppressed the personal element in his paintings and portraits and titled them simply Man of 45 or Woman lying down in order to persuade us, the viewers, to concentrate on the paintings for their own sake. He is now more relaxed about revealing his inspirations, interests and affections. Maturity has also brought with it greater confidence in his abilities and beliefs, but there is now a sense that there is no more virtue in being impersonal than there is in being overconfiding.

As with Auerbach, familiarity with his subject matter seems to inspire Finer to new heights. The self-portrait that dominates Gill Bastedo and Stephen Finer, 1998, is his first essay in the genre and an extraordinary achievement in its own right. There are a number of things about this painting that immediately strike the viewer as rather odd, but it is precisely these oddities which make it such an intensely personal and powerful work. The fact that it is painted in deceptively cool monochrome black and white might, in the context of Finer’s work, legitimately be assumed to put a bit of a damper on a painting celebrating a personal relationship of great warmth. Finer’s skill is such, however, that the portrait is vibrant with life and feeling, to the extent that I found myself increasingly unaware that there wasn’t any colour. He spares neither himself nor his partner the severity of his observation. An image of the great American comedian Phil Silvers was the first that came to mind (perhaps especially because Silvers is only ever seen on our televison screens in black and white). The difference in scale between the two figures on the one hand accurately reflects their relative difference in height but is actually far more descriptive of the artist’s protectiveness and tenderness towards his companion.

Robin Gibson was formerly the Chief Curator at the National Portrait Gallery and is the author of:

Painting the Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000, NPG Publication.

His previous publications include books on the photographer Madame Yevonde, the Sitwells and twentieth-century and contemporary portraiture.