Gary Stewart Hume (born 9 May 1962) is an English artist. Hume's work is strongly identified with the

YBA The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Golds ...

who came to prominence in the early 1990s. Hume lives and works in London and

Accord, New York Accord is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Ulster County, New York, United States. Accord is located in the eastern part of the Town of Rochester (not to be confused with the City of Rochester) along US 209. Accord is the seat of ...

.Gary Hume
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York/Los Angeles.

Life and career

Hume was born in 1962 in

Tenterden Tenterden is a town in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. It stands on the edge of the remnant forest the Weald, overlooking the valley of the River Rother. It was a member of the Cinque Ports Confederation. Its riverside today is ...

, Kent. He attended Homewood School. He graduated from

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the ...

in 1988. His work was included in both Freeze, an exhibition organised by

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...

in 1988, and East Country Yard, a warehouse exhibition organised by Henry Bond and

Sarah Lucas Sarah Lucas (born 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects. ...

in 1990.Carol Vogel (20 June 2013)
Finding Meaning in the Mundane: A Midcareer Survey of Gary Hume Paintings
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Hume has become known for depicting everyday subjects using high-gloss industrial paints. His earliest notable works are his "door paintings", life-size representations of hospital doors. These proved a critical success, being shown in Germany and the United States, as well as attracting the attention of collector

Charles Saatchi Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest ...

. Hume's work was included in the 1995 exhibition ''

Brilliant! ''Brilliant!'' was a group exhibition of contemporary art held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA between 22 October 1995 and 7 January 1996. The exhibition then traveled to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas - where i ...

'', a showcase of work by

artists. In 1997, his work was included in ''

Sensation Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system. Sensation or sensations may also refer to: In arts and entertainment In literature * Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode * Sensation novel, a Briti ...

'', a touring show of the

art collection at the Royal Academy, London. Hume abandoned doors in the mid-1990s, turning to paintings in household gloss paint on aluminium panel, for these often used appropriated images, including pictures of celebrities (e.g. DJ

Tony Blackburn Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and TV presenter. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC, on the BBC ...

) and animals. Their forms and colours are dramatically simplified, with people being reduced to just two or three colours. ''Snowman'' (1996), for example, is made up of three shades of red, showing a circle on top of a larger circle against a lighter background. At first, Hume used mainly bright colours, but later pieces have used more muted tones. Around 2005, Hume revisited his ''Door'' pictures, this time anthropomorphising the doors, arranging them into pairs of lovers and giving them the titles ''The Couple'' and ''The Argument''. Hume's “Yellow Window,” from 2002, broke records when sold at auction at Christie's (which is now selling some other pieces of his work from

George Michael George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the most significant cultural icons of the MTV generation and is one of the best-selling music ...

's collection). The work inspired a later limited edition entitled "1000 Windows," produced for London's Tate Modern in 2013. Besides his London studio, Hume maintains a second studio in a converted barn on the grounds of a former chicken farm in New York's

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas cl ...

region.

'' Liberty Grip'' is a 2008 sculpture in bronze by Hume, modelled in three discrete sections using the arm of a

mannequin A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. ...

as a template, and exhibited at

White Cube White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centr ...

gallery in

Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham ...

, London in 2013. The sculpture is today situated on a riverside path on the east side of the North Greenwich in south-east London, where it forms part of ''

The Line Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

'', a public sculpture trail that very roughly follows the path of the

Prime Meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ...

as it crosses the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

Philosophy and approach to painting

In 2012, Hume made an exhibition titled 'Indifferent Owl'. Speaking about his work in 2011, Hume had stated, 'Where I live in New York, there's a wood. I heard an owl in the night. Next day I found one of those "Happy Birthday" balloons caught in the trees. It had almost deflated. I imagined the owl, utterly indifferent, watching the balloon float by as it slowly collapsed. That's how I see life. I'm the owl, totally disengaged as the balloon bobs by…'

Exhibitions

Hume represented Great Britain at the 1999

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, where he showed his ''Water'' series, a number of superimposed line drawings of women (again, these were gloss paint on aluminium). His work was the subject of a one-person exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 1999. Later monographic shows of Hume's work were organised at the

Kestnergesellschaft Kestner Gesellschaft (Kestner Society) is an art institution in Hanover, Germany, founded in 1916 to promote the arts. Its founders included the painter Wilhelm von Debschitz (1871–1948). The association blossomed under the management of and , ...

, Hannover, and the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, in 2004, and Modern Art Oxford mounted a survey show of his ''Door'' paintings in 2008.

Recognition

In 1996, Hume was nominated for the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

, but lost out to

Douglas Gordon Douglas Gordon (born 20 September 1966) is a Scottish artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Work Much of Gordon' ...

. He was later awarded Great Britain's 1997

Jerwood Painting Prize The Jerwood Painting Prize was a prize for originality and excellence in painting in the United Kingdom, awarded and funded by the Jerwood Foundation. It was open to all artists born or resident in the UK, regardless of age or reputation. Winner ...

.Gary Hume: Small Paintings, January 17 – February 28, 1998
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Hume was elected a

Royal Academician The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...

in 2001.

References

External links

*
Matthew Marks Gallery - Gary HumeAn interview from ''The Guardian'' by Dominic MurphyBBC Collective
Gary Hume gives a video tour of his exhibition Cave Paintings at the White Cube, plus a gallery of images

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hume, Gary 1962 births Living people 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters 21st-century English male artists Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London People from Tenterden Royal Academicians Young British Artists English contemporary artists 20th-century English male artists