Maggi Hambling
b. 1945
Maggi Hambling
Maggi Hambling (b.1945) is a British painter and sculptor known for charged seascapes, searching portraits, and high-profile public works. Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, she trained at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Ipswich School of Art, Camberwell, and the Slade, graduating in 1969. She became the first Artist-in-Residence at the National Gallery in 1980–81.
Hambling is best known for series drawn from close observation of the North Sea and for portraits of writers, performers and scientists. Public sculptures include A Conversation with Oscar Wilde in central London and Scallop on Aldeburgh beach. She received the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1995, an OBE the same year, and a CBE in 2010.
Exhibitions have spanned major UK venues and abroad, with sustained attention to her paintings of waves and to portrait cycles such as those of Max Wall and George Melly.
Her work is held by major collections including Tate; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the British Museum; the Arts Council Collection; and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Available
‘Moon and Sea December I’
“I believe the subject chooses the artist, not vice versa, and that subject must then be in charge during the act of drawing in order for the truth to be found. Eye and hand attempt to discover and produce those precise marks which recreate what the heart feels. The challenge is to touch the subject, with all the desire of a lover.”