‘Picasso’s Studio, Cannes’ by Damian Elwes

‘Picasso’s Studio, Cannes’ by Damian Elwes is a digital archival print from a monumental painting of Picasso’s ‘Villa la Californie’ in Cannes, completed in 2018. The print is signed by the artist and numbered from an edition of 50. Elwes first began painting artists studios in the 1980s, beginning with contemporary artists in Paris. This later became a major direction in his work and Elwes has made at least 200 paintings of artists studios including Matisse, Gauguin, Cezanne, Hockney, Liechtenstein and Basquiat.

Artist Biography

Damian Elwes

Damian Elwes (born London, 10 August 1960) is a British/American artist with studios in Santa Monica and the Colombian rainforest. His grandfather and father were both portrait painters and left him their easels and brushes when they passed away.

In the early 1980s, after studying at Harvard University, Elwes lived in New York, where he was an early exponent of graffiti. A chance encounter with Keith Haring led to the start of his career as an artist. He and Haring talked graffiti and Haring encouraged Elwes to start painting. “He was very approachable and magnanimous,” Elwes says. But Haring insisted that Elwes make a painting before they spoke again.

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Some of his first paintings were chosen by the eminent London art dealer, Robert Fraser, to be included in a graffiti exhibition with Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, 11 August – 23 September 1984.

Following the exhibition Elwes went to Paris where, for two years, he made paintings of the studios of contemporary artists as a way to learn from them. With a limited knowledge of French, Elwes sought out artists studios across the city and persuaded them to allow him to sit in the corner and paint their studios. Although he didn’t realise it at the time, Elwes had embarked on a project that was later to lead to some of his most memorable and spectacular paintings.

Following his time in Paris, Elwes moved to Los Angeles, set up a studio, married, and embarked on a different path. For seven years, he and his wife, Lewanne, lived in Colombia making vast paintings of the threatened rainforest. They returned to LA in 2000 when Colombia became too dangerous. Back in LA, his early obsession resurfaced, and he started researching artists’ studios, beginning with Picasso. Elwes has since painted at least 200 artist studios, including those of Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin and Frida Kahlo, visiting the spaces and buildings where each artist worked. Using photographs to piece together the stories combined with meticulous research, he has been able to recreate each studio as authentically as possible.

In 2018, the Musée en Herbe in Paris hosted ‘Secrets of the Studio, from Claude Monet to Ai Weiwei’ a retrospective of Elwes' Artist Studio paintings. More than one hundred thousand people attended his immersive and interactive exhibition.

During the summer of 2019, Elwes visited the studios of Lichtenstein, Frankenthaler, Haring, Katz, Rothko, Hesse, Kusama, Basquiat and Kelly in New York City, Twombly’s studio in Gaeta, and the studios of Rose Wylie and Lucian Freud in London. Since then, he has been busy painting all the places, trying to describe moments in time when those artists were at their most inventive.

“It is a project which began many years ago” says Elwes. “Instead of going to art school, I went to Paris to learn to paint. I didn’t know anyone and had no studio there, but I had read Matisse’s advice to young artists, that they go to museums and copy favourite artworks.

I want these paintings to offer hope in these troubled times. There is loss and grief all around us and many feel trapped in their homes. My paintings peer into private spaces where artists have used their creativity and imagination to change the way we perceive the world.”

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