Timed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Anthony Green’s election as a Royal Academician in 1977, this Tennant Gallery show focuses on a recently-completed work, shown for the very first time. Three metres tall and entitled The Fur Coat, “Hazana”, it tells the story of his mother’s second marriage, seen through the eyes of her 13-year-old only child.
The painting, which Anthony Green has worked on over a decade from 2005, incorporates a life-size figure of his mother, Madeleine Dupont (1910–2005), complete with mink coat, silk scarf and handbag, and contains a fragment salvaged from a destroyed work of 1963. Free-standing elements extend the painted environment into the viewer’s space, while drawings and watercolours reveal the story of its making and documents and photographs testify to the tale this master storyteller relates.
