Champagne Laugh

Category: Paintings

Artist: Maggi Hambling

Subject: Towards Laughter

Year of Work: 1991

Media: oil on canvas

Size: 84" x 60"

Champagne Laugh by Maggi Hambling.
In the permanent collection of Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich Borough Council.

This painting is featured in the recent monograph published by Unicorn Press (see Publications page of this website). The painting was shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1992, where it attracted a pleasing variety of critical response, some of which is quoted in the monograph.

The painting went on to be included in the 1993-4 solo exhibition Towards Laughter which opened at the Northern Centre for Visual Art and then toured. In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, George Melly wrote: 'Maggi has pursued the laugh as Bacon has pursued the scream. She, like him, exploits chance and welcomes it, but unlike him she moves in on the laugh, so close as to remove any items of reference beyond a suggestion of fishnet stockings ('Brothel Laugh') or thin streaks of blood ('Suicide Laugh'). These are extraordinary and unique images. She knew when they didn't work (she destroyed many) but those she passed, whether on paper or on canvas, will come to be seen, and I am quite convinced of it, as among the great images of our time'.

author: iapmag

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