Melanie and Me Swimming
Michael Andrews
MICHAEL ANDREWS, 1979. ACRYLIC PAINT ON CANVAS
The lesser known member of the School of London that included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews’ work is gentler than his contemporaries. The process of painting, as for all of them, was central to his work and he was notoriously fastidious, producing very few finished works in his lifetime. While the era was concerned with abstract representations, Andrews and his cohort were rebels for figurative work. Perhaps more than any other members of the School of London, Andrews was fascinated by the depiction of human relationships. Painted from a photograph, this self portrait sees Andrews holding his young daughter afloat in a rock pool. He is mostly obscured, his purpose purely functional as she beams through the canvas. It is a depiction of a transitional moment of parenthood. Soon his service will be obsolete when she no longer needs him to float. In its quiet, gentle beauty, Andrews is dealing with human concepts as difficult and painful as any of his contemporaries.