Gerald Laing 1936-2011

"The day after I met Bob [Indiana] I started working for him. To some extent the timing had been fortuitous; shortly before my arrival his long-term relationship with the dress designer, John Kloss, had ended and Kloss had moved out. John Kloss continued to visit Indiana occasionally and commissioned me to make a portrait of Jean Harlow. This I did, and the experience was useful because I had not been commissioned to make a large painting before and it forced me to tackle problems that I would not otherwise have experienced. John gave me a copy of the famous photograph of Harlow in a negligee, sitting cross-legged in a large armchair. I used a shaped canvas - one of the first I made - to show the outline of the chair, and half tone dots for the swansdown of her negligee and for her exposed flesh. All the rest I did in flat colours, remembering the fashions from my mother’s 1930s wardrobe - especially the shoes, of which she had a great number." – G L