Now representing: the Estate of Euan Uglow

Bridgeman Images is now representing the Estate of Euan Uglow for copyright, reproduction and licensing

 

Euan Uglow (1932-2000) was a British painter best known for his paintings of nudes. His work included landscapes, portraits and still lifes, but his most well-known works are his nudes.  The artist's precision of composition was well established; Uglow's perfectionism meant that his output was small, albeit highly detailed.

 

 

Uglow was born and raised in south London and his life centred around the capital.  During the Second World War, he and his brother John were evacuated to a farm in Cornwall, where his creativity flourished and where he decided to become a conscientious objector.

 

 

Often (and somewhat misleadingly) described as a figurative or realist painter, his works are both radical and experimental.  His aim was to create "a structured painting full of controlled, and therefore potent, emotion". Whilst his works were greatly admired and desirable to individual collectors, they were often undervalued and under-represented in museums.

 

Uglow believed that no one could never be too much of a perfectionist, even going as far as making his own frames for his works. Using what he had learnt from William Coldstream at the Camberwell School of Art and Slade School of Art, he carefully measured his paintings at each stage of construction he preferred his canvas to be either a square, a golden rectangle, or a rectangle of exact root value, in order to achieve the right tone and extend the proportions. 

 

 

Despite his natural authority, Uglow was quite a shy artist who had a dislike for self-promotion. He also rejected an offer to become a member of the Royal Academy in 1961, although he was briefly a trustee at the National Gallery.

 

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