The Artist, 1976

Anthony Green RA (1939 - 2023)

RA Collection: Art

On free display in Collection Gallery

Artist Anthony Green takes centre stage, palette in hand, in a dramatic crown-shaped composition. On the right, spotlights shine down from the auditorium. On the left, the audience is made up of multiple self-portraits.

This humorous concept is a philosophical meditation on the changing role of the artist. From the Renaissance onwards, artists often worked on commissions for powerful patrons, including Kings and Queens. Today, artists work in an open art market.

The question arises, now that the artist is King/Queen, who will they paint for, and what should they paint? The still life on the stage appears as one potential subject. It is, as the artist put it: ‘a dilemma which all of us face in the twenty-first century… To be resolved…’