The renowned Jazz Impresario George Wein has donated a significant work by Anne Madden to Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. Mr. Wein will travel to Dublin to unveil ‘Winged Figure’ in City Hall on Friday 15 August at 11.00am at a ceremony attended by the artist and Barbara Dawson, Director of Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.
‘Winged Figure’ (2004-5) measures 390 x 342 cm and is a striking representation of the mature style of one of Ireland’s leading painters. Madden’s work vividly explores the expressive potential of colour and her abstraction is distinctly imbued with the human presence. ‘Winged Figure’ will hang on permanent exhibition in Dublin City Hall.
“Anne Madden oeuvre forms part of the canon of contemporary abstract painting. Her expressive vibrant landscapes reveal as much concern with the absent as they do with their existence. The tension between presence and want makes for a potent visual language, unique to her work “ said Barbara Dawson, Director of Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.
In recent years, Madden has worked on an increasingly ambitious scale. She undertook the painting of the Château de Carros in France (Empyrius, 1999). The spectacular 54m. squared ceiling suggests a sacred and ritualistic space. Winged Figure (2004–5), which was painted shortly afterwards, shows an angel-like winged figure over a flaming sea or sky. According to the artist this figure could be an apocalyptical or menacing presence. Recent exhibitions of work by Anne Madden include ‘A Space of Time’, shown in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane in 2003 and a major retrospective of her work in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2007.
George Wein has been a friend and patron of Anne Madden and Louis le Brocquy for over twenty years. Born in 1925, he is renowned for founding the Newport Jazz Festival in 1954. He also founded the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles and music festivals all over the world. Wein has worked with, and was a friend of all the great Jazz Artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Mingus, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. He has received numerous awards for his services to music including “Patron of the Arts” - Studio Museum of Harlem 1995, Legion d'Honneur - Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, and "Jazz Master" - National Endowment for the Arts (USA), 2005. He has received Honorary Degrees from Berklee College of Music and Rhode Island College of Music and is a Lifetime Honorary Trustee Carnegie Hall. In 2004 he published his autobiography "Myself Among Others - A Life in Music. "
ENDS