David Inshaw retrospective at the Saatchi Gallery

David Inshaw is the focus of a retrospective display of paintings at this year’s British Art Fair. Curated by Andrew Lambirth, it features examples of some of his Pop-inspired work, including Yes, Yes, which Bryan Robertson described at the time as ‘tough and assured’, along with Remembrance Collage, a work combining photography, collage and painting, and likened by The Guardian to having “the same distilled sexuality and nostalgia for lost love that inspires so much pop music”.

By the turn of the decade Inshaw moved away from Pop Art, having been inspired by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and the English countryside. His paintings were large, meticulously executed, and notable for how he imbued the scenes with a psychological drama between the human figure and the landscape. A key work from this period, She did not turn, will be on view at the Saatchi Gallery.

This sense of threat and foreboding shifts somewhat into more lyrical, romantic views of the countryside, with moonlit scenes of Silbury Hill, for example, as the topiary and trees assume a more benign, magical presence. The exhibition culminates in a series of heavily populated, amusing scenes set at the beach, with large female nudes that have been likened to “a cross between Carry on Camping and an Earth goddess”, by Rachel Campbell-Johnston.

Most of the paintings are on loan from private collections, and have not been on public display for many years. Other artists to be given special retrospective displays at this year’s Fair include Alan Davie and the YBAs. 

The British Art Fair runs from 3-6 October at the Saatchi Gallery.