We first met and started working with Maggi Hamnling in 1997-1998, when we published with her 'Portrait of Derek Jarman', an edition of prints to raise money for Terrence Higgins Trust. We now hold a selection of Maggi Hambling artworks, including paintings, monotypes and prints. Since the early 2000s her main muse has been the North Sea, and we hold a selection of Maggi Hambling waves and seascapes.
Maggi Hambling was born in Suffolk in 1945, and she is an eminent name in British art. She first studied at Benton End, Suffolk, under the painters Lett Haines and Cedric Morris, who had previously taught Lucian Freud. She continued her studies at Ipswich School of Art and then attended both the Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She became the first Artist in Residence at the National Gallery in 1980-81 and her portraits of George Melly and Max Wall hang in the National Portrait Gallery. Other public collections holding her work include the British Museum, the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery in London as well as the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. She was awarded a CBE in 2010.
A monograph Maggi Hambling The Works and Conversations with Andrew Lambirth was published in 2006 (Unicorn Press). A close friend of George Melly - George Always - her memorial exhibition of paintings of the legendary jazz singer was shown at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 2009. This major museum exhibition also included the silk-screen print George Melly Singing, which she published with IAP Fine Art in 2006, launched by George Melly and Stephen Fry.
Her public sculpture Scallop (2003), a monument to the composer Benjamin Britten, stands on Aldeburgh beach, Suffolk. The four-metre-high (13 ft) steel sculpture is pierced with the words "I hear those voices that will not be drowned" from his opera Peter Grimes. In recent years, Maggi Hambling has enjoyed exhibitions in Beijing, Turin, Madrid and New York. The Met in New York recently purchased a 'Wall of Water' painting, and she has a forthcoming exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery.
The recent BBC-commissioned documentary on the artist's life and work may be viewed here: MAGGI HAMBLING: Making Love with the Paint.
The new SKY Arts documentary on Maggi, with art historian Kate Bryan, will be broadcast in December 2024.