In 2017, The Courtauld Gallery organised a Drawings Gallery exhibition titled 'Drawing Together', which aimed to shed light on the creative power of drawing by staging a series of dialogues between historic works in The Courtauld Gallery’s Collection and a selection of works by modern and contemporary artists. The exhibition focussed on drawing as a creative act, tracing connections across schools and periods. To achieve this, the curator of the show, Ben Thomas, lecturer at the University of Kent, invited RA Stephen Farthing to create a new drawing inspired by a work in the collection. Stephen chose a drawing by Guercino (1591-1666), representing two women drying their hair in front of a fire (D.1952.RW.1359). The drawing had always fascinated him. In it, he saw the impetus of an artist responding spontaneously to a promising motif, while combining wet and dry media and playing with the subject of women drying their wet hair. Stephen spent a few hours in The Courtauld’s study room, sketching after the Guercino sheet. Then he reworked his first drawing, producing two subsequent sheets in which he reversed the relationship between light and dark as shown in Guercino’s drawing. Farthing was interested in the idea that an essentially wet tonal drawing was given structure and a fairly precise meaning by a network of dry scratchy lines. He spent time observing Guercino’s drawing trying to solve the conundrum whether the Italian artist started first drawing the lines or the tonal washes, reaching the unexpected conclusion that Guercino might have actually started his work with tone first. This informed Farthing’s own drawing and the final result is a wonderful contemporary response that adds to our understanding of the Old Master work. Stephen Farthing studied at St Martin’s School of Art, London before taking his Master’s Degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London from 1973 to 1976. His extensive teaching career began as a Lecturer at Canterbury College of Art and continued at the Royal College of Art, London from 1980 to 1985. From 1990 he was Ruskin Master at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Professorial Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He has exhibited extensively in solo shows since his first solo exhibition held at the Royal College of Art Gallery, London, in 1977. His work representing Britain was shown at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1989, leading to many further solo shows around the world. He was elected Royal Academician in 1998 and in 2000 was made an Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He lives and works between the United States and London.

Gift from the artist, 2018

Drawings Gallery Display - Drawing Together, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 30/09/2017-02/01/2018

The Courtauld Gallery and Thomas, Ben. Drawing Together (London: Courtauld Gallery, 2017-2018)
cat. no. 21
pp. 8, 30, 37-38, 40-41, 47
ill. on p. 37

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower left edge, graphite, described: “Wash Repeat : after Guercino #3”; lower right corner, graphite, signed and dated: “Stephen Farthing / 2017”.

Collector's mark: none.