Celia Paul (born 11 November 1959) is an Indian-born British painter. Paul's mainly known for her impressionistic work, which she developed during her education at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

Biography

Celia Paul was born on 11 November 1959 in

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

(formerly called Trivandrum), South India. From 1976 to 1981 she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where she met

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...

who was a visiting tutor. She had a relationship with Freud between 1978 and 1988 and has a son by him, Frank Paul (born 10 December 1984), who is also an artist. Spouse, Steven Kupfer (married 2011 - 2021). Paul was represented by Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London from 1984 to 1986 and then by

Marlborough Fine Art Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer. In 1963, a gallery was opened as Marlborough-Gerson in Manhattan, New York, at the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in ...

, London from 1989 to 2014. She has been represented by

Victoria Miro Victoria Marion Miro (born 1 July 1945) is a British art dealer, "one of the grandes dames of the Young British Artists, Britart scene"Husband, Stuart"Go see... the Victoria Miro gallery" ''The Observer'', 3 December 2000. Retrieved 27 September 2 ...

, London since May 2014. A solo exhibition of new work by the artist titled ''Celia Paul: Memory and Desire'' took place at Victoria Miro in London, 6 April–14 May 2022. The exhibition coincided with the publication of ''Letters to Gwen John'', a new book by the artist published by Jonathan Cape and New York Review Books which centres on a series of letters addressed to the painter Gwen John (1876–1939), who has long been a tutelary spirit for Paul. Paul wrote her autobiography ''Self-Portrait'' which was released in 2019 and well-received by national newspapers including ''The Guardian'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The New York Review of Books''.

Style and influences

Celia Paul's paintings are intimate depictions of people and places that she knows well. She does no portrait commissions. Her paintings have a haunting otherworldly feeling. "Throughout all her work the sense of sight is associated with a world of potential, within. This is how a sense of the ineffable is able to be communicated". Paul worked on a series of paintings of her mother from 1977 to 2007 and since then she has concentrated on her four sisters, especially her sister Kate. "… e real strength of Paul's project becomes apparent with time: the concentrated emotional energy of chronicling a family and its subtle shifts over many years". Recently her work has taken a new direction and she has been focussing on landscape and the sea. " e …is a creator of subterranean images. Her canvases are Impressionism in conversation with modernism- objective but felt".

Solo exhibitions

*"Celia Paul: Memory and Desire", Victoria Miro, London, 6 April – 14 May 2022 *"Celia Paul: Self-Portrait", an extended reality (XR) exhibition on Vortic Collect, Victoria Miro, London, UK, 10 November – 12 December 2020 *"Celia Paul: My Studio", an extended reality (XR) exhibition on Vortic Collect, Victoria Miro, London, UK, 26 June – 25 July 2020 *"Celia Paul", Victoria Miro, London, 13 November – 20 December 2019 *"Celia Paul", curated by Hilton Als, Yale Center for British Art, 3 April – 12 August 2018 *"The Sea and The Mirror", Victoria Miro Venice, 23 September – 21 December 2017 *"Desdemona for Hilton by Celia", Victoria Miro, London, 16 September – 29 October 2016 *"Desdemona for Celia by Hilton", Gallery Met, New York, 2015 *"Celia Paul",

, 2014 *"Gwen John and Celia Paul: Painters in Parallel",

Pallant House Gallery Pallant House Gallery is an art gallery in Chichester, West Sussex, England. It houses one of the best collections of 20th-century British art in the world. History The Gallery's collection is founded on works left to the city of Chichester by ...

, Chichester, 2012–2013 *"Celia Paul",

Graves Art Gallery Graves Art Gallery is an art gallery in Sheffield, England. The gallery is located above the Central Library in Sheffield city centre. It houses permanent displays from the city’s historic and contemporary collection of British and European ar ...

, Sheffield, 2005 *"Celia Paul: Stillness", Abbot Hall, Kendal, 2004 *Regular solo exhibitions at

, 1991–2013 *"Celia Paul",

Bernard Jacobson Gallery Bernard (''Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern'' "bear" and ''hard'' "brav ...

, 1986

Group exhibitions

* "Pictus Porrectus: Reconsidering the Full-Length Portrait", curated by Dodie Kazanjian and Alison Gingeras, Isaac Bell House, Newport, Rhode Island, 1 July – 2 October 2022 * "Me, Myself, I – Artists’ Self-Portraits", Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, 2 May – 19 June 2022 * "Figuration", Marlborough Gallery, London, 17 March – 29 April 2022 * "The Sublime in Nature", Daniel Malarkey, London, 16 June – 10 July 2021 * "I See You", an extended reality (XR) exhibition on Vortic Collect, Victoria Miro, London, 2 June – 4 July 2020 * "Parley for the Oceans x Vortic", online exhibition on Vortic, 2 October – 2 November 2020 * "Works on Paper", Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen, 26 January – 6 April 2019 * "Unparalleled Journey through Contemporary Art of Past 50 Years", Rubell Museum, Miami, USA, on view since 4 December 2019 * "Contemporary Dialogues with Tintoretto", Palazzo Ducale and Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro, Venice, 20 October 2018 – 24 February 2019 * "Studio Prints: a Survey", Marlborough Fine Art, London, 30 November – 21 December 2018 * "All Too Human", Tate Britain, 28 February – 26 August 2018; travelling to Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 9 October 2018 – 13 January 2019 * "House Work", Victoria Miro Mayfair, London, 1 February – 18 March 2017 * "NO MAN'S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection", Rubell Family Collection, Miami, 2015 – 2016 * "Forces in Nature", curated by

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...

;

, London, 2015 * Work presented at

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Frieze London takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. In the US, the fair ran on New York's Randall's Island from 2012–19 and in 2 ...

, London, 2014 by

*"Cinematic Visions: Painting at the Edge of Reality", curated by

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Ma ...

Isaac Julien Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and distinguished professor of the arts at UC Santa Cruz. Early life Julien was born in the East End ...

and Glenn Scott Wright,

, London, 2013 *"Self-Consciousness", curated by

Peter Doig Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting ''White Canoe'' sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction rec ...

and

, VeneKlasen/Werner, Berlin, 2010 *"Psycho", curated by Danny Moynihan, Anne Faggionato, London, 2000 *"School of London", Odette Gilbert, London, 1989 *"British Figurative Art: Sickert to Bacon",

Israel Museum The Israel Museum ( he, מוזיאון ישראל, ''Muze'on Yisrael'') is an art and archaeological museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world’s leading encyclopa ...

, Jerusalem, 1989 *"School of London: Bacon to Bevan",

Musée Maillol The Musée Maillol is an art museum located in the 7th arrondissement at 59–61, rue de Grenelle, Paris, France. History In 1964, Dina Vierny donated Maillol's monumental sculptures to the state. André Malraux, Minister of Culture, installs t ...

, Paris, 1998 *"September", curated by

The approach ''The Approach'' is the debut album of the Illinois-based industrial band, I:Scintilla. Production on the album began immediately after the formation of the band and it was produced by guitarist Jim Cookas. It is currently out of print, but sec ...

, London, 1997

Films and interviews

*Celia Paul: Private View, directed by Jake Auerbach, 2019 *In Conversation with

, London, 8 July 2014 *''Artists at War:

Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...

'', directed by Danny Katz, 2014 *

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by A ...

, broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

, 1 October 2012 *''The Last Art Film'', directed by

Jake Auerbach Jake Auerbach (born 1958) is a British film maker specialising in documentary subjects. Though his films have ranged across the cultural spectrum he is best known for his portraits of artists both contemporary and historical. Career Jake Auerbach ...

, 2010 *''Lucian Freud'', directed by

Randall Wright Randall D. Wright (born August 4, 1956) is a Canadian academic macroeconomist who advanced the fields of monetary economics and labor economics through his role in the development of matching theory. Biography Wright obtained a B.A. in Econo ...

, 2011 *''Lucian Freud'', directed by

, 2004

Public collections

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, London; National Portrait Gallery, London,

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London;

Saatchi Collection The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the D ...

, London; Abbot Hall, Kendal;

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York;

Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

, Connecticut;

Carlsberg Foundation Carlsberg Foundation ( da, Carlsbergfondet) was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in 1876, by allocating some of his shares in the Carlsberg Brewery to fund and operate the Carlsberg Laboratory and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace. ...

, Copenhagen;

Frissiras Museum Frissiras Museum is a contemporary painting museum in Plaka Athens, Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located ...

, Athens;

Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum (HAUM) is an art museum in the German city of Braunschweig, Lower Saxony. History Founded in 1754, the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum is one of the oldest museums in Europe. The museum has its origins in the art and nat ...

, Brunswick, Germany
Morgan Library
, New York
New Hall Art Collection
Cambridge

References

External links

Celia Paul
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul, Celia 1959 births 20th-century British painters 21st-century British painters Modern painters Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Living people