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Gerald Laing 1955.
Gerald Ogilvie-Laing was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 11th February 1936. Educated at Berkhamsted School, he was commissioned from Sandhurst in 1955 into his father’s regiment, the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. During service in Northern Ireland, he saw the John Osborne play Look Back In Anger and, realising that the military was not his vocation, resigned his commission. Enrolling at St Martin’s School of Art in London, he travelled to New York as part of his course and met future leading lights in the pop art movement, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana. Employed as Indiana’s studio assistant, he was impressed by the giant loft studio, commenting: ‘Even their paint tubes are bigger than ours!’ Returning to London to finish his course, the penniless Laing left several paintings in the loft rather than pay the shipping costs – they were spotted by Richard Feigen, a prominent art gallery owner, who exhibited them to great acclaim.
After art school, Laing moved with his young family to New York, where his earlier connections were useful in getting a foothold in the avant-garde world of 60s pop art. His early work encapsulated the decade, with huge canvasses based on newspaper photographs of famous models, film stars and astronauts. His work also commented on current events, with Souvenir a comment on the Cuban Missile Crisis and Lincoln Convertible on the assignation of John F. Kennedy. Indeed, the latter was considered
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