Angelica is a handmade screenprint with 18 separately screened layers. This new print was made as a result of her two RA commissions: An Allegory of Painting on show in the hallway of Burlington House, and The Rainbow, 2018, in the ramp space by the Grand Café until 18 August 2019.
The work celebrates Angelica Kauffman RA (1741–1807), one of the only two female Founding Members of the RA and the painter of the four roundels displayed on the ceiling of the Burlington House hallway. Painted in a neoclassical style, each of these allegorical roundels presents a female figure to represent one of the four tenets of art according to Sir Joshua Reynolds: Composition, Design, Invention and Colour.
Sarah Pickstone's Angelica has at its core the face from Kauffman's Colour and borrows elements from all four paintings. Employing as many different techniques as she could within the medium of screenprinting, Pickstone creates a free and open image in response to Kauffman's roundels.
In the artist's words:
'It felt like a collaboration with Kauffman herself and above all a celebration of the creative spirit that is at the heart of the Royal Academy.'
More