Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob (left) and Grayson Perry at private view of Gilbert & George retrospective, Tate Modern
Born	(1947-03-11) 11 March 1947 (age 65) London, United Kingdom
Occupation	Television executive & broadcaster
Spouse	Phillipa Walker

Alan Yentob (born 11 March 1947) is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.

Early life[link]

Alan Yentob was born into an Iraqi Jewish family in London. Soon after he was born, his family moved to Manchester where his dad ran a textile business, Dewhurst Dent, in which he still owns a 10% share.^[1] He grew up in Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester, and returned to London with his family when he was 12 to live in a flat on Park Lane.^[2] He was a boarder at the independent The King's School in Ely, Cambridgeshire. He passed his A Levels and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and spent a year at Grenoble University. He went on to study Law at Leeds University, where he got involved in student drama. He graduated with a lower second class degree (2:2) in 1967.^[3]

Career[link]

He joined the BBC as a trainee in the BBC World Service in 1968 as its only non-Oxbridge graduate of that year. Nine months later he moved into TV to become an assistant director on arts programmes.^[3]

In 1973, he became a producer and director, working on the high-profile documentary series, Omnibus, for which, in 1975, he made a famous film called Cracked Actor about the musician David Bowie. In 1975, he helped initiate another famous BBC documentary series, Arena, of which he was to remain the editor until 1985. The series still returns for semi-regular editions as of 2006.

He left Arena to become the BBC's Head of Music and Arts, a position he occupied until 1987, when he was promoted to Controller of BBC Two, one of the youngest channel controllers in the BBC's history. Under Yentob's five year stewardship BBC Two was re-vitalised and he introduced many innovations in programming such as The Late Show, Have I Got News For You, Absolutely Fabulous and Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers.

In 1993 he was promoted to Controller of BBC One, responsible for the output of the BBC's premier channel.^[3] His time here was seen as another success and he remained in the post for three years until 1996, when he was promoted again to become BBC Television's overall Director of Programmes.

This appointment was only a brief one, however, before a re-organisation of the BBC's Executive Committee led to the creation of a new post, filled by Yentob, of Director of Drama, Entertainment and Children's. This placed Yentob in overall supervision of the BBC's output in these three genres across all media - radio, television and Internet. He occupied this post until June 2004, when new BBC Director-General Mark Thompson re-organised the BBC's executive committee and promoted Yentob to the new post of BBC Creative Director, responsible for overseeing BBC creative output across television, radio and interactive services.

In the 2000s, he has also begun fronting BBC programmes as a presenter. These have included a series on the life of Leonardo da Vinci and a new regular arts series, Imagine.

One episode of Imagine has Yentob explore the World Wide Web, Blogging, User created content, and even the use of Wikipedia, exploring people's motives and satisfaction that can be had from sharing information on such a large scale. His own blog, created during the making of the episode, was subsequently deleted and purged. In 2007, Yentob appeared as the 'host' of the satirical Imagine a Mildly Amusing Panel Show, a spoof Imagine... episode focused on the comedy panel game Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Yentob's reputation was affected when it was revealed that his participation in some of the interviews for Imagine had been faked. Yentob has been warned not to do this again, but otherwise not disciplined, much to the disgruntlement of some who have seen more junior staff lose their jobs for lesser misdemeanours.^[4]

In 2005, Yentob was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from De Montfort University, Leicester.

In July 2009 he was revealed to have accumulated a pension worth £6.3m, giving an annual retirement income of £216,667 for the rest of his life. This is one of the biggest pensions in the public sector.^[5] He has been on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation.

On 16 March 2010, Yentob and Nigella Lawson opened the new London Jewish Museum in Camden Town.^[6]

He is referred to by the nickname Botney (Yentob spelled backwards) by the magazine Private Eye. ^[7]

He is currently employed by the BBC under the title of Creative Director and is paid a salary of £168,300 by the BBC (correct as of August 2010).^[8]

Family[link]

Yentob is married to Philippa Walker, a television producer.^[9] He has two children, Isabella and Jacob.^[10]

Yentob's twenty-year-old son Jacob Walker Yentob was wounded in a stabbing incident in September 2006. Jacob and a friend were stabbed after refusing to hand over valuables to a robber who knocked on the door at the family's four-storey Victorian home in Notting Hill. Both teenagers needed hospital attention after the attack.

References[link]

External links[link]

• BBC Imagine site

Antony Gormley
Angel of the North in Gateshead
Birth name	Antony Mark David Gormley[1]
Born	(1950-08-30) 30 August 1950 (age 61)[1] London, England, UK[1]
Field	Sculpture

Another Place where 100 cast iron figures face out to sea on Crosby Beach, near Liverpool Iron: Man, in Victoria Square, Birmingham 1 of 31 actual size figures on London's skyline in Event Horizon Antony Gormley and David Chipperfield´s Sculpture for an objective experience of architecture (2008), Kivik Art Centre, Sweden

Antony Mark David Gormley OBE RA (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site installation which premiered in London in 2007, and in 2010 around Madison Square in New York City.

Early life[link]

The youngest of seven children born to a German mother and an Irish father,^[1] Gormley grew up in a wealthy Roman Catholic^[2] family living in Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire.^[1] He attended Ampleforth College, a Benedictine boarding school in Yorkshire,^[1] before reading archaeology, anthropology and the history of art at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1968 to 1971.^[1] He travelled to India and Sri Lanka to learn more about Buddhism between 1971 and 1974.^[1] Attending at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths in London from 1974, he completed his studies with a postgraduate course in sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, between 1977 and 1979.

Career[link]

Pair of figures separated by plate glass, Regent's Place, London

Gormley's career began with a solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1981. Almost all of his work takes the human body as its subject, with his own body used in many works as the basis for metal casts.

Gormley describes his work as "an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live."^[3] Many of his works are based on molds taken from his own body, or "the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside."^[3] His work attempts to treat the body not as an object but a place and in making works that enclose the space of a particular body to identify a condition common to all human beings. The work is not symbolic but indexical — a trace of a real event of a real body in time.

Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 with Field for the British Isles. He was later quoted as saying that he was "embarrassed and guilty to have won — it's like being a Holocaust survivor. In the moment of winning there is a sense the others have been diminished. I know artists who've been seriously knocked off their perches through disappointment."^[4]

The 2006 Sydney Biennale featured Gormley's Asian Field, an installation of 180,000 small clay figurines crafted by 350 Chinese villagers in five days from 100 tons of red clay.^{[citation needed]} The appropriation of others' works caused minor controversy, with some of the figurines being stolen in protest.^{[citation needed]} Also in 2006, the burning of Gormley's 25-metre high The Waste Man formed the zenith of the Margate Exodus.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, Gormley's Event Horizon, consisting of 31 life-size and anatomically-correct casts of his body, four in cast iron and 27 in fiberglass, was installed on top of prominent buildings along London's South Bank, and was later installed in locations around New York City's Madison Square in 2010. Gormley said of the New York site that "Within the condensed environment of Manhattan's topography, the level of tension between the palpable, the perceivable and the imaginable is heightened because of the density and scale of the buildings" and that in this context, the project should "activate the skyline in order to encourage people to look around. In this process of looking and finding, or looking and seeking, one perhaps re-assess one's own position in the world and becomes aware of one's status of embedment."^[5] Critic Howard Halle said of it that "Using distance and attendant shifts of scale within the very fabric of the city, [Event Horizon] creates a metaphor for urban life and all the contradictory associations – alienation, ambition, anonymity, fame – it entails."^[5]

In July 2009, Gormley presented One & Other, a Fourth Plinth Commission, an invitation for members of the public, chosen by lot, to spend one hour on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square, London.^[6] This "living art" happening initially attracted much media attention. It even became a topic of discussion on the long-running BBC radio drama series The Archers, with Gormley set to make an appearance as himself.^[7]

Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003 Trustee of the British Museum since 2007. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an honorary doctor of the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. In October 2010, he and 100 other leading artists signed an open letter to the Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt protesting against cutbacks in the arts.^[8]

On 13 March 2011, Gormley was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance for the set design for Babel (Words) at Sadler's Wells in collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet.^[9]

Major works[link]

Gormley's website includes images of nearly all of his works up to 2009. The most notable include:

• Field (and subsequent recreations)
• Sound II (1986) – in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England
• Iron: Man (1993) – Victoria Square, Birmingham, England
• Havmann (1995) – Mo i Rana, Arctic Circle City, Norway
• Another Place (1997) – permanently installed at Crosby Beach near Liverpool, England^[10]
• Quantum Cloud (1999)– Greenwich, London, England
• Angel of the North (1998) – Low Fell (overlooking the A1 and A167 roads), Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England
• Planets (2002) – at the British Library, London.^[11]
• Filter (2002) – acquired by Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, England, in 2009
• Time Horizon – the Archaeological Park of Scolacium near Catanzaro in Calabria, Southern Italy^[12]
• Blind Light (2007), Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London
• Event Horizon (2007) – along the South Bank of the Thames, London, England; (2010) around Madison Square, New York City
• Reflection II (2008) – acquired by DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts, in 2009
• One & Other (6 July – 14 October 2009) – Trafalgar Square, London, England^[6]
• Habitat – Gormley's first permanent installation in the United States, in Anchorage, Alaska on the grounds of the Anchorage Museum, cost an estimated $560,000.
• Voices from Oxford – Gormley's sculpture on top of Exeter College, Oxford, overlooking Broad Street
• Horizon Field (2010–2012) – sculpture installation in the Austrian Alps.
• Exposure (2010) – Lelystad, Netherlands
• Cloud Chain (2010) – Les Archives Nationales, Paris, France

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Antony Gormley

• Antony Gormley — official website AntonyGormley.com
• Antony Gormley on Artcyclopedia
• Gormley's exhibition in Guernsey for the International Artist In Residence Programme IAIRP
• Pictures of Gormley's sculpture in Oxford being erected on 15 February 2009
• An interview with Gormley by Edward Lucie Smith in RealMedia format
• Interactive video interview with Gormley and interactive exploration of his work at the Tate Gallery
• Antony Gormley audio: The artist considers his art and his research into the Wellcome collections
• Antony Gormley at Xavier Hufkens, Brussels
• Tate: In the Studio: Antony Gormley A tour of the artist's studio. 1 September 2007.
• Studio Visit: Antony Gormley. London, 4 November 2011

Stella Vine
Stella Vine in 2001
Birth name	Melissa Jane Robson
Born	1969 (1969) Alnwick, Northumberland, England
Nationality	English
Field	Painting
Training	Academy of Live and Recorded Arts

Stella Vine (born Melissa Jane Robson, 1969) is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.

After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in her teens, had a son, with whom she moved from Northumberland to London. She worked in various jobs, including as a waitress, stripper and cleaner. She joined the NYT (National Youth Theatre of Britain) in 1983, and studied for three years at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts 1987–1990.

In 1999 – 2001,^[1] she took her son to painting classes at the Hampstead School of Art, where she found her own vocation as a painter.^[2] In 2001, she was exhibited by the Stuckists group, which she joined for a short time; she was married briefly to the group co-founder, Charles Thomson.

In 2003, she opened her own gallery Rosy Wilde in East London. In 2004, Charles Saatchi bought Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened (2003), a painting by her of Diana, Princess of Wales, which provoked media controversy, as did a subsequent painting of drug victim, Rachel Whitear. There was a dispute with the Stuckists, who said they had influenced her work; Vine said they had not.

Later work has included Kate Moss as a subject, as in Holy water cannot help you now (2005). In 2005, another painting of Diana, Princess of Wales, Murdered, pregnant and embalmed (2005) was bought by George Michael. In 2006, she re-opened her gallery in Soho, London.

The first major show of her work was held in 2007 at Modern Art Oxford, which won over some previously hostile critics. Germaine Greer gave a public talk at the museum about Vine's work and wrote an essay for the exhibition catalogue. The Financial Times, said Vine's scrutiny of the cult of celebrity as contemporary fairy tale was descended from the same tradition as Andy Warhol and Hans Christian Andersen.^[3] In the same year, Vine provided clothing designs for Topshop. In 2009, the Oxford Union Society announced they had invited Stella Vine to debate on 19 February.^[4]

Life and career[link]

It has been suggested that The art of Stella Vine be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since February 2012.

Early life[link]

Stella Vine was born in Alnwick, seen behind the Alnwick Castle

Stella Vine was born Melissa Jane Robson in Alnwick, Northumberland, England. Her name was changed to Melissa Jordan after her stepfather's name; she subsequently changed it to Stella Vine in 1995, inspired by Andy Warhol names, as "I didn't feel like I belonged to either of my fathers' families."^[5] She lived with her mother who was a seamstress and her grandmother who was a secretary. Her mother remarried when she was seven, and they relocated to Norwich.^[6]

Vine said she was, "making things and performing music and plays, as far back as I can remember."^[7] When she was a child, she used to make water colours in the library, painting Queen Victoria, and copying the Pre-Raphaelites and Greek Mythology.^[7]

She loved the TV series Bagpuss, and said as an adult that the words and tunes were still in her head: "It had a dark edge to it – it filled your imagination."^[8] In 1981, she won a silver cup for "most original act" for a mime in a talent competition at the Norwich Theatre Royal.^[9]

After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home aged 13. Vine lived in the infamous^[10] Argyle Street squat before being briefly fostered in Brixton,^[7] London but her new foster parents were unable to cope with her wilfulness.^[11] Vine then moved back to Norwich, to teach herself in the Norwich Reference Library. The "resourceful" young Vine asked for advice on home education from an old lady at the local CAB.^[7] She moved into a bedsit on St Stephen's Street, Norwich, where she started a relationship with a 24-year-old caretaker. Two years later she became pregnant. Vine's first job was at age 14 in a local Norwich cake shop.^[12] Vine also signed on for the dole pretending to be aged 19 under the name of Jane Blackford, explaining she’d lost her birth certificate.^[11]

London[link]

At the age of 17, she gave birth to a son, Jamie,^[2] moving with him into a home for single parents called Umbrella Housing.^[7] and then to London, where Vine joined the NYT (National Youth Theatre of Britain) in 1983, and the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, London, 1987–1990. They moved to Tooting in 1987 and her son went to a Montessori nursery school.^[7]

She lived with musician Ross Newell, "the love of her life" for over four years, but "stupidly" left him for another relationship; two years later she wanted to restart the relationship with Newell, but he no longer trusted her.^[13] In 2004, by which time Newell was settled in a marriage with children, Vine said that he was still her "soul mate".^[13] Describing how she decided to become an artist and what inspired her, Vine said a "wonderful ex-boyfriend" called Ross had always told her she should become a painter, and that she had always made "crazy doodles", but her ambition at that time was to be Bette Davis, Poison Ivy or Joan Littlewood.^[14] In 2004, Vine painted all three.^[15]

For five years she also performed as an actress, touring provincial theatres around the UK,^[16] as well as running her own improvised theatre company, Minx Productions, and playing with her band, Victoria Falls. Vine said it was difficult to tour with a small child but earned her Equity Card by performing with Durham Theatre Company. Amongst other roles, she played Barclay in What The Butler Saw at Theatre Clwyd, The National Theatre of Wales: she was a fan of playwright Joe Orton, whom she discovered at drama school.^[7] Vine said she would wake up early and dance to songs by PJ Harvey before improvising around her character to prepare for each day's rehearsals.^[7] Vine remembers seeing "wonderful paintings by Gainsborough"^[7] whilst rehearsing at Kenwood House, London.

In the late 1980s, Vine met the film director Mike Leigh. After seeing Mike Leigh's film Meantime, it became her ambition to direct and act in improvised films. When Vine was in her early twenties she auditioned for him twice.^[7] Leigh said to her: "I can understand why you want to be other people."^[7] Vine later said of her paintings that they are perhaps her "other people".^[7] Waldemar Januszczak said her artwork was "method painting: painted projections of herself" as in the Stanislavski system.^[11]

The Windmill Club, where Vine worked as a stripper.^[11]

In 1995,^[2] she abandoned her ambitions to be an actress and became a hostess in a Mayfair club, where most of the activity was talking, often to elderly men, and "Any negotiation for sexual favours, or your time, or conversation, was very old-fashioned. Very English."^[11] Using the name "Stella Vine", she became a lap dancer, drinking vodka to overcome the difficulty of approaching customers, but being comfortable on stage, where she performed "incredibly erotically",^[11] while also often feeling like a social worker.^[13] She worked as a stripper at Miranda's^[11] and later at the Windmill Club in Soho to pay the rent, whilst living with her son in bedsits.^[11]

One man she met, whom she described as a "sugar daddy"^[6] and with whom she was still in contact in 2007, looked after her for six years, and in 1998 took her to New York, where he introduced her to the Frick Collection.^[11] She recalled in 2007 that "the candy coloured" room of Gainsborough proved such a rush of excitement that she had to sit down. Vine said she had a hidden desire for "pretty, pretty things, and there it was in all its glory."^[17] Januszczak said that this was the moment Vine "realised how much prettiness was possible in art."^[11]

Vine took her son out of school because he had been bullied and educated him at home. From 1999 or 2000 (dates vary)^[18] until 2001, she enrolled him for part-time evening painting classes at Hampstead School of Art, an unfunded, non-profit making charity.^[19] Vine wanted to vary his lessons^[2] and make life as fun as possible for her son, but he didn’t like going to the classes,^[11] so she took his place instead and found her vocation as a painter.^[2] Paintings done at the school included portrait heads.^[20]

The Stuckists[link]

Stella Vine (right) with Charlotte Gavin (left) and Joe Machine at the Vote Stuckist show in 2001.^[21]

Vine developed a "crush" on Billy Childish, and attended his music events;^[11] in June 2000, she went to a talk given by him and fellow Stuckist co-founder, Charles Thomson, on Stuckism. She met Thomson^[11] on 30 May 2001 at the Vote Stuckist show in Brixton; she exhibited some of her paintings publicly for the first time in the show and formed The Westminster Stuckists group.^[21] On 4 June, she took part in a Stuckist demonstration.^[22][23] On 10 July, she renamed her group The Unstuckists.^[24][25] In October, there was a Vine painting in the first Stuckist show in Paris.^[22]

She had a two month relationship with Thomson and they married on 8 August 2001 in New York.^[26] two days later they had an intense row;^[27][28][29] she left him and they did not meet again till a week later in London.^[29] They split up after about two months,^[6] and were divorced in October 2003.^[2]

In February 2004, when Vine "rose to fame after being championed by Charles Saatchi",^[30] Thomson said that it was he and the Stuckists, not Saatchi, who had "discovered" Vine.^[31] In March 2004, Vine said that she had only seen Thomson once in the previous two years, in an art shop,^[28] and that she married him because this had been a condition of his paying off her debts of £20,000.^[28]

Vine's marriage to Charles Thomson in 2001 lasted two months.^[6]

Thomson said that this had been part of a business arrangement to promote themselves as an art couple, and that there had been no condition of marriage.^[32] She later told The Times that it was "impossible to explain"^[33] why she married Thomson:^[33] "When I met him and he saw some of my history, he saw dollar signs."^[33] Thomson said that she avoided reality: "Now it makes me question a lot of things she told me about her past."^[27]

On 28 March 2004, Thomson reported Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for alleged breaches of the Competition Act and cited as an example Saatchi's promotion of Vine.^[34] The OFT did not uphold the complaint.^[35] In September 2004, Vine threatened suicide if her work was included in The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Liverpool Biennial; the owner of the painting withdrew it.^[36]

In October 2006, The Stuckist group show, Go West, at Spectrum London gallery, included two paintings by Thomson, which were "explicit images of his ex-wife."^[37] Vine said she had no comment.^[37] In February 2008, Stuckist artist, Mark D (real name Mark Randall) opened a show of satirical paintings based on Vine's work."^[38] Several years previously, Randall had attempted to buy a painting from Vine, who told him, "Go fuck yourself", when she found out he had a link with Thomson.^[38] In September, Thomson criticised the Tate gallery for not representing enough figurative painters, among whom he listed Vine,^[39] and said she should have been a Turner Prize nominee for her show at Modern Art Oxford.^[40]

In 2002 – 2003, Vine studied Philosophical Aesthetics with Johnathan Lahey Dronsfield at Birkbeck College whilst also attending the course Performance After Warhol with Professor Gavin Butt in 2002, and Women's Work with Kathy Battista at Tate Modern. She said she also found much of her art education through the Serpentine Gallery bookshop and became involved with East London artist-run galleries.^[14]

Rosy Wilde and Saatchi[link]

In 2003, she opened the Rosy Wilde gallery on Whitecross Street in east London. Vine bought the former butchers shop and converted it herself into a gallery space that exclusively held exhibitions of contemporary art by emerging artists.^[41] Vine lived and worked in a studio above the artist-run gallery^[14] whilst her son lived in the basement.^[2]

Vine's mother, who had been ill with Crohn's disease, died suddenly from bowel cancer^[16] around this time which led to Vine's high creative drive and the creation of her darkest paintings.^[42]

Vine painted 30 pictures of Diana, Princess of Wales in 2003.^[28]

In November 2003 she made the first of her Diana, Princess of Wales paintings and those of teenage girls like Rachel Whitear who suffered tragic deaths. She painted as many as 30 of Diana alone, having become fascinated by conspiracy theories into the Princess' tragic car crash which she had read on the Internet.^[28] Vine destroyed many of these paintings soon after they were created.^[43] She put them all, apart from one, in a skip as she did not have enough space to dry nor store the wet paintings.^[28]

The gallery was on the verge of bankruptcy, when Charles Saatchi purchased her painting of Diana, Princess of Wales Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened (2003), showing the Princess with heavy eyes and blood on from her lips. The work's title came from the thick red text painted across the canvas, a reference to Diana's butler Paul Burrell. Thanks to the Saatchi purchase, Vine said she could pay the bills by painting and she did not need more than that.^[28] The price of her paintings "doubled virtually overnight".^[44]

Saatchi had discovered the painting in a show called Girl on Girl in Cathy Lomax's Transition Gallery, which is housed in a converted garage in Hackney. Vine had originally wanted to price the painting at £100.^[45] Lomax described the painting:

Stella Vine's work deals with her fascination with the trashy and the dark. Underlying this is a sometimes contradictory love for her subjects. Hi Paul can you come over... examines that pivotal moment in the standing of the British Monarchy, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the horror of her crash. All the conspiracy theories are summed up in this painting as a wild eyed and tiara clad Diana cries for help whilst painterly blood drips from her luscious lips.^[46] Vine said in 2007 that she had always been drawn to "the beauty and the tragedy of Diana’s life".^[43]

As Saatchi anticipated, much of the media attacked the work in his New Blood exhibition, creating a considerable return in publicity for his investment.^[47] Media coverage focused on the controversial nature of the painting, as well as the fact that the painting had been bought for only £600 from an unknown artist, who was a single mother and an ex-stripper. In its first 21 days the show had 56,000 visitors, more than had previously seen shows by both The Chapman Brothers and Damien Hirst.^[48] Saatchi hit back at critics saying he was being cast as "a pantomime villain".^[48] Saatchi also backed up his choice of art works by saying it was mindless to dismiss the art he chose to show, just because it was him showing it.^[48] He also defended his choice to show Vine's work, saying many critics knew "remarkably little about new art, can't cope without their PC guidebook or a press release and are always, but always, 10 years late getting their heads around anything new."^[48]

A subsequent purchase by Saatchi of Vine's painting of Rachel Whitear (also with blood running from the mouth) created further media reaction, as Whitear was a former drug user, whose body was due for exhumation.^[49] Vine refused to acquiesce to the parents' request, backed by the police, not to exhibit the painting, then on view in the Saatchi Gallery in the New Blood show during March 2004. Saatchi had delegated to her the decision to keep the work on display or withdraw it. Emma Saunders of the BBC said, "whatever the rights and wrongs of displaying such work, the images are startlingly beautiful"^[50] Vine discussed the controversy surrounding her Rachel (2003) painting on BBC Radio 4's programme Front Row^[51]

In 2004, David Lee, editor of The Jackdaw magazine,^[52] attacked Charles Saatchi's New Blood exhibition for having "promoted a rotten, talentless painter called Stella Vine to public notoriety"^[53] and Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph critic, said: "It's trash. It is another stab at creating the visual equivalent of tabloid journalism."^[31] Waldemar Januszczak, The Sunday Times critic singled her out for praise in his otherwise hostile review of the Saatchi Gallery's New Blood show in 2004, and later said, "although I didn’t much want to like Vine’s contribution, I found I did. It had something." Alex Michon, in an essay for the Prozac and Private Views catalogue, said that Adrian Searle of The Guardian was one of the only critics to acknowledge that he had been evaluating a reproduction of Vine's painting.^[54] Searle wrote: "I can't tell from the reproductions of her work I have seen whether it is an act of balderdash, good painting or bad, bad painting; but it is clear that Vine knows the difference."^[55] Vine said she was upset that some people, including her relatives, didn't like her image of Diana, as she believe it was not a disrespectful picture but it was in fact a self portrait as much as depiction of Diana: "The picture is about two women. One who lived in Kensington Palace. And the other who lives down the Whitecross Street. "I look at the picture," says Vine, "and I also see myself.""^[28]

June – July 2004, Vine held her first solo exhibition, Prozac and Private Views, at Transition Gallery, London, featuring new paintings such as Geri (2004)^[15] of popstar Geri Halliwell, Ted (2004) of Ted Hughes^[56] and two self-portraits of Vine as a child Melissa pink dress (2004)^[57] and Baby (Baby Melissa) (2004).^[15] The show included two Vine sculptures including Sylvia cooker (2004), a gas cooker with enamel painting of Sylvia Plath on its door.^[58] Vine was interviewed about the exhibition by Jenni Murray for BBC Radio 4's programme Woman's Hour.^[59]

On 1 July 2004, one of Vine's paintings Kitten (2004) was stolen from the exhibition at 1.30 pm.^[58] Cathy Lomax, who was invigilating at the time, called the police who said there was little chance of finding it.^[60] The Hackney Gazette, The East London Advertiser and Flash Art reported the theft. Vine commented: "I am sad as Kitten was one of my favourite paintings, and also because it had been promised to a young American couple, who had been waiting for a painting for some time. I hope that whoever stole it, stole it because they loved it, and not because of all the hype."^[60]

In September 2004, Vine went back to her home town of Alnwick, where she donated 3 paintings to the Bailiffgate Museum collection, the local museum.^[61] Two of the paintings were autobiographical. One painting called The Rumbling Kurn (2003) shows part of the Alnwick shoreline near Howick beach, whilst 27 Clayport Gardens (2004) depicts Vine in a pram as a child "outside her grandmother's old house".^[62] The third work depicts Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour called Belle (2004) is a painting with collage, including a pink satin ribbon and a small cut out ink jet print of a bee, stuck on to the painting. The name Belle is painted in red across the circular board.^{[63][not in citation given][15]}

Kate Moss paintings[link]

In 2005, Vine lived in Los Angeles having been invited by Roberts & Tilton gallery^[64] to put on a solo show there^[16] The solo exhibition Petal (Part Two) ran from 3 June – 2 July 2005. From Los Angeles, Vine returned to London, living for a short while in Montague Street in a hotel; in order to avoid making a mess in her room, she painted in a van to prepare work for a show in New York.^[65]

Vine moved to a flat in London's Bloomsbury district, opposite the British Museum, feeling at home with the historic character of the area. She continued with an erratic, bohemian life, using a local Camera Café as her office.^[65] There followed solo shows in Israel, Los Angeles, London and New York. She was included in the second Prague Biennale.^[66] Also in 2005, her solo show of new paintings Stellawood was staged at Tim Jefferies' gallery in Mayfair, London. At this time Vine collaborated with the artist James Jessop for the exhibition Fame at the This Way Up Gallery above the Dragon Bar in East London. The installation of paintings was based on the New York graffiti scene of the 1980s, including depictions of Fab Five Freddy, Keith Haring and Blondie.

Vine lived in Tavistock Square (behind the screens) at the time of the 2005 bus bombing there.

In July 2005, Vine made a painting of the No. 30 London bus which had been destroyed by a suicide bomber in Tavistock Square, outside her Bloomsbury flat; part of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Vine painted over the artwork almost as soon as she had made it, as she found the work "simply too disturbing".^[67] Vine documented the bus painting before she re-painted over it, but refuses to show the photographs publicly during her lifetime. She described it as stunning and moving but "extremely harrowing to paint because there were bodies on the bus."^[67] The canvas now shows the model Abi Titmuss wearing bleeding red shoes. Vine's decision to paint over the work was because she believed it too shocking to be exhibited but said freedom of expression was more important to her than money or success and that she reserves the right to paint anything that is shocking in life: "As an artist, if you can't take that freedom, you're a wanker."^[67]

In August 2005, her painting Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened (2003) was listed in The Guardian at number three in a list of the ten worst paintings in Britain, having been chosen by David Andrews, a caricaturist who works in Leicester Square.^[68] A new Vine painting of Diana, Princess of Wales called Murdered, pregnant and embalmed (2005), was bought by George Michael for £25,000, reported in The Sun newspaper which condemned it as "sick".^[69]

Vine has made a number of large paintings of Kate Moss including Holy water cannot help you now (2005) and Kate unfinished (2005). Some of Vine's paintings of the supermodel were painted during the media scandal regarding Moss' alleged cocaine use. One painting of Moss exhibited at Hiscox Art Projects in London, had a slogan Must be the season of the witch across it in red paint.^[70] Describing why she painted Moss, Vine compared the supermodel to Mona Lisa and said: "There's a bravery in Kate's eyes."^[71] Waldemar Januszczak said the show was "a combination of empathy and cynicism that can be startling."^[72]

Vine herself admitted to a four-month cocaine addiction.^[73] She said, "I had been painting Kate Moss for a long time, both before the time of her crisis and during it. I felt very strongly for her—she's a hard-working mum and it seemed as if suddenly the world turned against her."^[65] Vine said the media should not have accused Moss of being a bad mother, commenting that "men can go off and take as many drugs as they want, have as many children as they want, and their parenting rarely comes into question".^[71] A Vine painting of Kate Moss was bought by fashion designer, Alexander McQueen.^[1]

Rosy Wilde re-opens[link]

The Rosy Wilde gallery re-opened in 2006 above the Ann Summers shop in Wardour Street, London.

In 2006, she re-opened her Rosy Wilde gallery, this time in Wardour Street^[74] on the first floor above the first Ann Summers sex shop in Soho, London. After being collected by Saatchi, who Vine said had acted "entirely honourably",^[6] she worked with a number of dealers who told her they had sold paintings when in fact they had saved the best works for themselves.^[6] Commenting on her experiences in the commercial gallery world, Vine said: "The art world is really exactly the same as the sex industry: you have to be completely on guard, you will get shafted, fucked over left, right and centre."^[67] Vine said:

"I have always been ambitious, no doubt about that. I always felt like I had to reach the dizzy heights of fame and success or whatever the heights are of a number of given professions I have dabbled in, to prove myself, "Stripper of the year", a Bafta or whatever, for me it was by creating something interesting and entertaining or moving, but not by compromising the thing I was creating, that thing had to reach those heights, I guess it's about being accepted and loved a bit or a lot."^[9]

In June 2006, Vine held a solo show at the Bailiffgate Museum in Alnwick called Whatever Happened to Melissa Jane?. The exhibition title played on the title of the 1962 film, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?: "Vine often uses witty pieces of text within her work that reflect the subject’s possible thoughts on, or reactions to, a situation."^[75]

In August 2006, she was featured in the tabloids, when her painting of Celebrity Big Brother stars, Samuel "Ordinary Boy" Preston and Chantelle Houghton, "was used as the invitation to their wedding".^[76]

September – October 2006, Vine was invited by the Museum of New Art in Detroit, to create a USA solo exhibition The Waltz.^[77] Rather than a regular exhibition, Vine painted a large-scale mural across the museum space over a period of 5 days. The "live painting performance" was filmed and later exhibited alongside the stacked mural as a six-channel video installation showing Vine creating the mural, adding an extra dimension to her work.^[78]

On 21 November 2006, Vine was filmed with Modern Art Oxford gallery director Andrew Nairne as part of Tim Marlow's documentary called Tim Marlow on... Modern Art Oxford on Five (TV channel).^[79]

In April 2007, Vine was filmed in an episode of Horizon called Battle of the Brains for BBC Two in 2007.^[80]

In May 2007, Vine took part in a public talk Gender & Culture^[43] with Germaine Greer as part of the Women's International Arts Festival.^[81] Vine was later interviewed by students from John Mason School, and Oxford Community School, Oxford in July 2007, organised by Arts Council England.^[82]

Modern Art Oxford[link]

Modern Art Oxford held Vine's first major solo show in 2007.

July – September 2007, the first major solo show of Vine's work was held at Modern Art Oxford.^[83] The show included more than 100^[43] paintings which had not previously had much exposure, and also work made specially for the show, including a new Diana, Princess of Wales series of paintings^[83] such as Diana branches (2007) and Diana family picnic (2007) which "echoes the style" of family portraits painted by Thomas Gainsborough.^[75] Vine hoped these new works would show Diana's combined strength and vulnerability as well as her close relationship with her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.^[43] Vine oversaw the set up and installation of her exhibition at the museum herself but did not attend the opening press launch day or any of the private view evenings.^[84] In an education guide published by the museum, there was a quote from Vine: "I’m not interested in being a shocking artist and not interested in being a celebrity myself."^[75]

A book Stella Vine: Paintings accompany the exhibition, including an essay by Germaine Greer.^[83] On 18 September 2007, Greer gave a talk about Vine's art with gallery director Andrew Nairne.^[84] Vine was initially expected to be part of the talk with Greer, but did not attend due to personal reasons.^[84] The Independent reported that Vine's "apparent reticence to step into the spotlight does not appear to have hampered her career commercially in any way" as all the paintings in the exhibition were sold.^[84]

Germaine Greer wrote a catalogue essay and gave a talk about Vine's work at Modern Art Oxford in 2007.

Prior to the show opening, Vine said:

Vine's solo exhibition took place across the whole of the museum; in the 'Piper Gallery', the 'Middle Gallery' and the large 'Upper Gallery' which had many paintings of different sizes, hung from floor to ceiling: "a style of hanging paintings that is reminiscent of the salon hang, a 19th Century fashion for displaying paintings."^[75]

Richard Dorment of The Daily Telegraph, who had previously described her work as "crappy", said of the show, "Well blow me down, she's good after all. Stella Vine is bang on the money: the paintings in her first solo show skewer celebrity culture with a vitality and truth that can't be faked".^[86]

Lynn Barber, art critic for The Observer wrote that she thought Vine was the real deal.^[6] The Guardian commented: "Vine's lurid and gutsy paintings are causing a storm in the art world. And rightly so."^[52] Arifa Akbar of The Independent said Vine's examination of the culture of celebrity had been described as descending from the same tradition as pop art founder, Andy Warhol.^[76] Vine said to The Independent on Sunday that she feels a strong connection to Warhol and having studied Warhol in depth on a course at Tate Modern she also considers herself as a similar type of character as him.^[85]

Andy Warhol: Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times said Vine was his descendent.^[3]

Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times likened Vine to Hans Christian Andersen in that she is "a fabulist who is both a grown-up artist and, emotionally, a child so damaged that she cannot grow up", "clever, literate, witty", and "Warhol's descendent" in her understanding of the idolisation of celebrity as a contemporary fairy tale.^[3]

Andrew Nairne, director of Modern Art Oxford, said in the gallery's Summer brochure, that Vine will be discovered to be one of the most remarkable painters of our time.^[87] Germaine Greer wrote in the show catalogue, "Though Stella Vine remains viscerally connected to the facts of her life, she is not her own hero. Her art is not a performance.".^[88] Greer likened Vine's focus on the "iconography of the face, the two-eared badge of identity"^[88] to the way Marlene Dumas and Jenny Saville have explored the imagery of the human body, and that when Vine "seizes on her celebrity subject and throttles her into paint, smearing her lipstick and melting her eye-makeup, she is as implacable as any rapist."^[89]

Ana Finel-Honigman wrote in her introduction to an interview with Vine on the Saatchi Gallery web site: "the quality that critics use to undermine the credibility of Vine's art—that it is adolescent—is actually the source of its indisputable emotional impact." Finel-Honigman described Vine's art as bitterly honest in the same way Holden Caulfield's observations were about "a world filled with phonies", and Kurt Cobain's songs about "adult lies and injustice", and Sylvia Plath's "over-heated anger and bitterness at the world's betrayals" and that "Plath would surely appreciate Vine's portrait of Ted Hughes, with the epithet, Daddy, I have had to kill you emblazoned on the canvas."^[1] It was reported that Vine subsidised the Modern Art Oxford solo show by giving the museum four of her paintings valued at £46,000^[6] to cover the costs of shipping more than 100 works from all over the world to Oxford.^[90] The musicians Gina Birch of rock band The Raincoats and KatieJane Garside of rock band Daisy Chainsaw both performed live at the party to commemorate the end of Vine's solo show.^[91] Birch had previously performed at Vine's gallery Rosy Wilde in 2003^[78] and at the opening of Vine's exhibition Prozac and Private Views in 2004.^[15] In September 2007, Immodesty Blaize said she had been entranced by Vine's painting Diana crash (2007) at Modern Art Oxford finding it "by turns horrifying, bemusing and funny".^[92]

Top Shop and Sport Relief[link]

Stella Vine designed a fashion range for Topshop in 2007.

In July 2007, Vine collaborated with Topshop clothing chain, creating a limited edition fashion range inspired by her artworks. These included T-shirts,^[93] vest tops, and T-shirt dresses,^[94] the labels designed in pink glitter.^[95] The Guardian commented that "the fact that the range of T-shirts she has recently designed for Top Shop – emblazoned with slogans like Breaks Up With Her Boyfriend^[96] – are flying out, speaks volumes for her public support."^[52]

In 2008, Vine created the painting Didier (2008),^[97] depicting sports star Didier Drogba, for the charity Sport Relief. Vine also allowed them to create a limited edition print of Didier (2008) to help raise further funds for the charity.^[98] In April 2008, a drawing of author J. K. Rowling by Vine was auctioned for The Merlin Project charity^[99] who raise funds to build a Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre.^[100]

Didier Drogba: Vine painted him in 2008 for the Sport Relief charity.

Vine told The Guardian that she would spend Christmas Day 2008 with a run around the Serpentine, or a walk in Hyde Park or across London town with her son's bullmastiff dog and a small haversack of whisky and coffee.^[101]

In the February 2009 issue of Gay Times, Vine discussed the 'tabloid frenzy' and media scrutiny that followed Saatchi collecting her work in 2004: "In the beginning it was a real battle to assert any kind of intelligence at all.". She spoke of pouring her emotions out in interviews and coming across as "a bit wild" and explained her mother had died at that time: "you are in a bit of a crazy place after something like that.".^[102] She said she now feels like "someone who's grown up" and that she sees life in a "much more mature kind of way". Vine said she was happy the media gave her a platform when no-one else did, and in spite of getting annoyed when factually incorrect things were said about her or when her comments were taken out of context, she did not really mind, as out of that she had the "opportunity for people to see my work and make their own decisions."^[102]

Vine described modern celebrity culture as nothing new, that it's something humans had always done and that she admired people who were under intense pressure like Britney Spears who she felt was "very, very brave".^[102] Vine discussed her paintings of other musicians such as Morrissey (and his band The Smiths), who she admires for his "physicality, his voice and his maverick stance and independence". Vine painted Amy Winehouse in Amy brick wall because of Amy's "bizarre mixture" of fragility and strength, and "the whole thing of putting her man on a pedestal, almost like a Country & Western singer from the 60s."^[102] Vine described Kurt Cobain as a good, brave person and that her paintings of Courtney Love such as Courtney guilty were made during Love's trial when Vine felt Love was under attack, which she identifies with: "She's one of those people who are prepared to put the truth out, warts and all, even though you will be attacked for it.^[102]

Future[link]

On 19 February 2009 at Oxford Union, Vine spoke in proposition of the motion, This House Believes That Promiscuity Is A Virtue Not A Vice, along with Dr. Shere Hite, Carol Queen and Joani Blank; in opposition were the Bishop of Ebbsfleet (Andrew Burnham), Wendy Shalit and Inga Muscio.^[4]

In November 2008, it was announced that Vine had begun painting a series of new work for a large solo show at the Eden Project, Cornwall, England to be held June–September 2010.^[87]

In January 2012, it was announced that Vine would paint a portrait of the Brontë sisters to help raise money for the repair of St Michael and All Angels Parish Church in Haworth, West Yorkshire, where Patrick Brontë was curate. ^[103]

Solo shows[link]

• 2004 Prozac and Private Views, London, UK
• 2004 Petal, Tel Aviv, Israel
• 2005 Stellawood, London, UK
• 2005 Petal (Part Two), Los Angeles, USA
• 2006 Whatever happened to Melissa Jane?, Alnwick, UK
• 2006 The Waltz, Detroit, USA
• 2007 Stella Vine: Paintings, Oxford, UK

Collections[link]

• Saatchi Gallery
• Bailiffgate Museum
• George Michael^[104] (Goss-Michael Foundation)
• David Roberts^[105] (David Roberts Art Foundation)
• Brandes Family Collection, Israel^[106]
• Jacopelli Collection, Italy^[106]
• Adele^[107]
• Robert Diament^[108]
• Alexander McQueen^[1]
• Private Collections in USA, Israel, Italy, Germany and UK^[106]

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Stella Vine

• Stella Vine web site
• Rosy Wilde Gallery (historic site)
• Stella Vine paintings and CV
• Stella Vine blogs for Guardian, 2007

v t e Stella Vine Main articles The art of Stella Vine • Talks and collaborations by Stella Vine • Charitable work by Stella Vine • Charles Thomson, Stella Vine, and the Stuckists Own gallery Rosy Wilde Galleries shown in Transition Gallery • Saatchi Gallery • Modern Art Oxford See also Arty

David Bowie
Bowie during the Heathen Tour in 2002.
Background information
Birth name	David Robert Jones
Born	(1947-01-08) 8 January 1947 (age 65) Brixton, London, England
Genres	Rock, glam rock, art rock, pop
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica, saxophone, viola, cello, koto, percussion
Years active	1964–2008
Labels	Deram, RCA, Virgin, EMI, ISO, Columbia, BMG, Pye
Associated acts	The Riot Squad, Arnold Corns, Tin Machine, The Hype, The Lower Third, The Konrads
Website	davidbowie.com

David Bowie ( /ˈboʊ.i/ BOH-ee;^[1] born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.

Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture."^[2] The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, which yielded several hit singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003–04 Reality Tour.

Buckley says of Bowie: "His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure."^[2] In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie was placed at number 29. Throughout his career, he has sold an estimated 140 million albums. In the UK, he has been awarded nine Platinum album certifications, 11 Gold and eight Silver, and in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 39th on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and 23rd on their list of the best singers of all-time.