‘…it’s not to everyone’s taste’, he says, ‘like stilton cheese or ripe camembert’ (Sooke, 2018). Appropriation artist Glenn Brown self-disparaging comments regarding his work litter his interviews throughout his 30-year career. This essay will examine Brown’s Gothic tendencies and preoccupation with death and decay, the controversy concerning his Turner Prize nomination and the copyright lawsuit that followed, and finally his most recent work. Although Brown is also a sculptor, only his painting will be considered thereby concentrating upon one media to deliver a thorough study of the subject. In conclusion this essay will find that Brown appropriates because he is an active art historian with a passion for method and continues to do so despite acerbic criticism and copyright infringement claims.
He was displaced. Hexham-born (1966), a North-East boy transplanted to the rural, ‘isolated flatlands’ of Norfolk where he grew up (Brown, 2014). Amid the shortages wrought by the Three-Day Week, the rise of Thatcherism and the launch of Pot Noodle, Glenn Brown wrestled with his religious scepticism and homosexuality, an adolescent imagination which created multiple alternative worlds, and a liking for Gothic horror (Steiner, 2009:p. 12. Brown, 2014). Isolated and culturally divergent, he found solace in the Art History section of his local library and museums (Steiner, 2004: p.96). The macabre became his fascination (Jeffries, 2018) and he found his identity aligned with a Gothic lifestyle which allowed him to be outrageous (MacRitchie, 2009:p.97) and to irritate ‘because it was fun’ (Sooke, 2018). In an art education which culminated in an MA at Goldsmiths, Brown learned from Michael Craig-Martin the complex philosophy of inspiration: of the impossibility of achieving originality because any work truly original would be incomprehensible (Jeffries, 2018). Brown admired the vulgarity displayed in the works of David Salle, Julian Schnabel and Sigmar Polke as well as the clever use of colour and perception by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse (Steiner, 2004: p.95). In addition, post-graduate Brown was ‘burdened’ by Gerhard Richter’s theory that true originality does not exist but is instead a by-product of an artist’s life experiences and exposure to the work of others (ibid). Upon graduation Brown’s work found its place alongside Young British Artists at Charles Saatchi’s Boundary Road Gallery and in 1997 was included in Sensation, an exhibition at the Royal Academy. However, Brown dissociates with the Young British Artists stating that he was never a member of the group, that it was their differences which defined the YBA (Brown, 2009) and he insists he is ‘…not a good modernist’ (Gingeras, 2004). However, Brown had been identified as a relevant and contemporary British talent, his nomination to the Turner Prize in 2000 a seminal moment. Among Brown’s works, The Loves of Shepherds (fig.1.) is curated into the Turner Prize exhibition.
The inspiration for The Loves of Shepherds was taken from an illustration on the wraparound cover of Double Star (fig.2.), a 1974 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. The illustrator was Tony Roberts, Roberts had received £180 for his work (Daily Telegraph, 2000).
It was reported that shortly after the exhibition opened visitors recognised Brown’s work as being a copy of a relatively obscure 26 year-old novel’s cover illustration (Telegraph, 2000. BBC 2000). A sceptic might suggest that controversy is excellent publicity for the Turner Prize. However the story reached the press, in November 2000 Glenn Brown found his work subjected to media scrutiny and scathing criticism in a very public forum. Originality and copyright in art became a hot topic, and a debate began which still smoulders eighteen years later. The artist of the book cover, Tony Roberts, was alerted to The Loves of Shepherds and initially responded positively. He was ‘amazed and flattered’ by Brown’s work and its place in the Turner Prize exhibition (Daily Telegraph, 2000). However, upon being enlightened that a painting inspired by Sci-Fi illustrator Chris Foss by Brown had sold on the secondary market for £3.5m his tone changed:
‘On a personal level this shows a complete lack of courtesy. Glenn Brown has obviously made a lot of money out of this. He has sold the painting. He has been shortlisted for a prize. None of this would be possible without my painting. There is a certain amount of resentment, and I do feel indignant that this guy is making money and getting credit and not giving me any’ – Tony Roberts
(Daily Telegraph, 2000).
Roberts felt he should receive money and acknowledgement, in that order of priority the evidence suggests. On the evening that the Turner Prize winner was announced, Roberts approached Brown hoping to sort the matter out between the two of them when that was not possible legal action was taken for copyright infringement (Roberts, n.d.). Despite a two-year legal battle which cost Brown £140,000 in legal fees, all the money he had earned from his paintings at that time (Lillington, 2014). And yet, this could have been avoided had the painting been labelled correctly as The Loves of Shepherds (After Double Star by Tony Roberts) thus crediting Roberts fulfilling his wish for acknowledgement. Brown’s work had been labelled correctly attributing his sources before 2000. His science fiction paintings inspired by Chris Foss and John Martin had always been labelled with their title followed by the bracketed acknowledgment before the Turner Prize (Higgie, 1999). However, in the catalogue for the Turner Prize exhibition there was no reference to either Heinlein’s novel or Roberts’ illustration, it stated only that Brown’s work is inspired by other artworks or from films (BBC, 2000). This gives weight to the theory that the Turner Prize invited controversy for publicity. The chairman of the Turner Prize jury in 2000, Nicholas Serota, appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today current affairs programme stating that the painting did not plagiarise Roberts and correctly observed that Picasso had taken inspiration from Rembrandt going as far as to use the term ‘borrowed’ from Rembrandt (ibid). Equally, Dali and Halsman had created a photomontage of Dali as the Mona Lisa in 1953. In fact, reworking dates back throughout art history particularly during the Renaissance (Latin: rebirth) when Roman art was copied, embellished, used as inspiration, and thus was reborn by artists such as Francisco de Holanda (1517-1585) who made celebrated replicas of liturgical art for the Portuguese court (Calvillo: p.501). The Loves of Shepherds became controversial in 2000 because its source was not acknowledged directly, and unlike Di Vinci and the artists of Classical Roma, Roberts was still living and had not been approached to give his permission for Brown to use his work. Chris Foss and John Martin had given permission to Brown to use their work, although Foss admitted that he did not fully understand Brown’s work when granting permission and regretted this after Brown’s Turner Prize nomination (Anders, 2014). The Turner Prize received a lot of publicity from the Brown/Roberts controversy. Originally the story broke in The Times and was then picked up by the BBC and spread to other news networks. The Turner Prize went from the arts supplement to the news pages with a well-timed controversy. Brown recalls the misery this caused him. Two years of expensive legal argument resulted in him almost losing his house and giving the lawyers what he calls ‘a fun time’ (Brown, 2009).
Legally, Roberts could argue breach of his copyright under UK law. While Brown’s paintings approximate and elaborate by stretching and changing colours and textures, whether this is too close to the source material to breach copyright became public and legal debate. Roberts v Brown, as stated above, settled out of court two years later and remained legally undetermined. In order to establish whether a work breaches copyright a visual connection must be made between the original work and the secondary. A copyright breach is considered if the secondary is considered to have been substantially derived from the original – a quantitative value, not qualitative. Should art critics or art professionals be asked to judge whether a work has breached copyright their trained opinion would judge the works qualitatively, and therefore non-art professionals are used as ‘impartial’ judges. These are referred to as ‘non-visual experts’ (Artlaw, 2014). The two images are placed side by side and the non-visual expert is asked to observe configuration and perspective as well as shape and composition to establish a visual connection. While non-visual experts found this link between Roberts and Brown’s works, art professionals agreed that Brown’s work was qualitatively, aesthetically, different from the original (ibid). Art was on trial, and art and law do not make good bedfellows. Tate and the Turner Prize insisted Brown’s work was far departed from the original while non-visual experts termed it a ‘rip off’ and was ‘just like’ Roberts’ illustration (ibid). Even eighteen years later, Endleman calls The Loves of Shepherds a ransacking of another’s imagination for profit (Endleman, 2018). However, when two photocopied photographs of the works in question are placed side by side context is completely removed. While Roberts painted an illustration for a small book cover, Brown’s work exceeds two metres by three metres in size and took over a thousand hours to complete. Brown has altered the size, dimensions, colours, and most certainly the mood, The Loves of Shepherds contains the Gothic drama, a sense of loneliness and loss of gravity that belongs completely to the unique Glenn Brown, as the first part of this essay examined. It is the position of the author that Brown’s work is significantly different from the original work as there has occurred a material transformation and thereby complies with the legal precedent of Interlego AG vs Tyco Industries Inc (1989) which established that to be considered ‘original’ the secondary art work must be altered ‘materially or by embellishment’ under UK law (Lydiate, 2001). As Le Corbusier inferred, all artists steal; but the truly original artist repays a thousand fold (ibid). Brown considers his work repays his sources while acknowledging that copyright constraints are always a consideration in his work now, he insists that his paintings are a critique or a comment on existing work that surrounds him and that his extensive study of art history has shown him that Chris Foss and even van Gogh took from existing art (Steiner, 2004:p.97).
Brown could avoid controversy by painting from his own imagination and not borrow from existing works. This, however, will never happen. Still burdened by Richter and his relationship with art history, Brown remains an appropriation stalwart. Joanna Pitman believes that Brown has a virtuous technical skill and his choice to borrow or appropriate his subjects demonstrates his will to ‘choose the path of most resistance and stick to it bloody-mindedly’ (Lillington, 2014). Perhaps referring to his time as a Young British Artist, a group he distances himself with, Brown remembers he was often criticised by his fellow artists for appropriation, that he would ‘grow up’ one day and paint his own pictures (Bracewell, 2007; p.60). He does not desire to start with a blank canvas, to own his paintings entirely, to be freed from art history. He says ‘If I was in a field painting flowers Monet, Renoir or Latour would be influencing me’ (Jeffries, 2018) and even if he did paint something manmade such as a vase or a table he would still be copying someone else’s design, it would be appropriation (Sooke, 2018). Ever self-effacing, Brown says that any ‘original’ work he created would be dull, meaningless, asking ‘what am I supposed to paint that is absolutely me? I’ve no idea’ (Lillington, 2014). The evidence firmly shows that Brown was, is and will be an appropriation artist for his career, something he states is more accepted in the USA than in the UK due to the popularity of Pop Art across The Atlantic (Bracewell, 2007). His art is Pop, he declares it so, but his trompe l’oeil impasto method challenges traditional Pop media – it resembles print, for example, while painstakingly mimicking the brushstrokes of impasto. ‘My work’ he says ‘is always going to be based on something and I wanted to make the relationship with art history as obvious as possible’ (MacRitchie, 2009: p. 96).
Following the controversy, Brown left science fiction art behind him. Rembrandt became his new muse and he developed his method choosing a small section of an artwork from art history, distorting it in Photoshop and finishing his transformation by using a colour palette from another artwork, such as Degas’ ballerinas, which is a recurring colour choice for his works. He likens this transformative process to Mary Shelley’s character, referring to himself as the Dr Frankenstein of art making art from the ‘dead parts of other works’ (Jeffries, 2018). He recounts that after a show in 2000 he was critiqued by Johnathan Jones in The Guardian that he needed to stop holding back, Jones wanted a ‘larger Glenn’ and suggested he should take the path of the carnivalesque (Jeffries, 2018). His 2004 exhibition at The Serpentine Gallery was exactly that: bold, bright and definitely carnival. Post-2000 Brown’s work complies much more to the legal precedent of work having to be transformatively different to the original to be considered such by non-visual experts. ‘It’s often difficult to recognise what [the work] is based on’ Brown says, ‘because so much of the original has been changed’ (MacRitchie, 2009: p.96). The misery of legal proceedings changed Brown’s work, but he developed in ways he would not have the controversy not arisen. Brown pushes himself and his work to be more obscure, employs visual puzzles for art historians and has become a greater success for his efforts. The ‘original’ Glenn, despite his denial, has surfaced with his Gothic disposition for death and darkness dominating his work post 2004.
He explored vulgarity, rot and decay provoking reaction. ‘Art left to decay’ (Fox, 2014), ‘…obsession with the grotesque and its possibilities…hopelessly schizophrenic’ (Lillington, 2014) the critics said. Brown approves. His work is in a place between life and death, with his subjects in various states of trauma (Sooke, 2018) and to Brown this is reality whether his audience likes it or not. Additionally, his Christian upbringing and de-conversion to atheism is prevalent in his later works. The institutional Church became part of Brown’s art history narrative as he regressed back toward the works of Early Modern Europe which the Church controlled through patronage and indoctrination. Brown resents the Church’s manipulation of art for its own purpose, its use as a didactic tool (Gingeras, 2004; p.18). His appropriation of Mancini’s Fillipo Niri in Glory before the Virgin (c 1738) (fig.3.)
he transformed into This Island Earth (fig.4.) St Phillip de Niri is an obscure Early Modern saint, and his depiction with the Virgin holding Christ as a baby as she does again after the Passion fills Mancini’s work with a cacophony of confused visual contradictions that illustrate Brown’s dislike of Church idolatry that coerces its followers. It is fake news.
Brown admires the brush work of the original and recreates each sweep of impasto with minute brush strokes in greyscale. Layers upon layers of delicate brushwork capture each fold of material, each sinew where flesh should be found. The composition is transformed into ethereal, ghosts replace saints and immortals. It resides in a place between this world and the next, exactly where Brown’s work belongs – neither one thing nor the other, and despite his protestations: original.
This essay has shown that Glenn Brown’s work is a product of his time and the influences of his displaced youth. He did not win the Turner Prize, but the controversy that arose served as the catalyst to move his work from early to middle career in dramatic fashion. Brown’s work matured and became sharper in its wit, intellectual reasoning and fastidious execution. Roberts, who gained no money from the controversy, had nothing to show for two years of legal arguing. Selling his original illustration art from the seventies and eighties online, Roberts found a market for limited edition prints of Double Star after selling the original to an American; Roberts did not find fame but instead found notoriety because he was appropriated by Glenn Brown, it is what he is known for. However, publication houses shied away from Roberts after the law suit, and it is the suing of Glenn Brown that will be his legacy. Despite almost losing his home and being financially stripped bare, Brown did not give up. Instead he gathered himself and matured artistically. He also got married in 2004 to his studio manager, Edgar. Brown ‘grew up’ and developed his own artistic voice because of the controversy, not in spite of it. In 2018 he has had a solo exhibition in London, and has two upcoming solo exhibitions in the USA. This Island Earth features in each of these exhibitions. The Loves of Shepherds resides at the Tate, currently in room 1, a prime position. The work now appears in the catalogue as The Loves of Shepherds (after Double Star by Tony Roberts).
The Turner Prize is yet to announce its nominees for 2018.
Michael Palmer 