Paul McPhail (British, born 1966)
'Mother & Child'
titled, dated, signed and inscribed with the artist's address '1992/Paul McPhail' (verso)', further signed and dated by the artist (verso)
oil on canvas
183 x 172.5cm (72 x 68in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Houldsworth Fine Art, London.
Private collection, UK (acquired from the above shortly after the work's completion).

Mother & Child is the only recorded self-portrait of Paul McPhail with his wife and fellow painter, Jenny Saville. Painted in 1992, shortly after the completion of their studies at the Glasgow School of Art, the work shows a young artist fascinated by the human body, and one who was not afraid to challenge accepted notions of beauty whilst exploring deeper themes of the human condition.

The inspiration for Mother & Child is Michelangelo's marble La Pieta housed in St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. However, unlike the marble original with its focus on harmony and balance in its most refined form, McPhail's figures are all too human. There is real weight and volume to these fleshy bodies, rendered so effectively in McPhail's dynamic and broad brushstrokes reminiscent of Rubens's great figurative subjects. Where the original La Pieta epitomises balance in the art of the high Renaissance, there is an uneasiness to Mother & Child, as McPhail awkwardly reclines across Saville's lap who is subsequently perched on an uncomfortably small chair.

With Mother & Child, not only has McPhail turned accepted notions of idealised figurative art on their head, but he has also raised broader themes on the fragility of man whilst calling into question notions of masculinity. McPhail portrays himself as a vulnerable figure outstretched on the lap of his partner, but he has also chosen to be in the guise of Christ after the crucifixion held by his mother. In this, perhaps we can see McPhail highlighting the importance of these two relationships to him. However, the fragility of the chair upon which they sit giving some sense of an uneasiness – a feeling that it could fail, and they could come crashing down.

The great scale on which it is painted, and the tight cropping of the figures, thrusts the viewer into the scene. However, rather than being intimidating, this in fact creates a relationship between the viewer and the sitters, and instead allows one to really experience the intimacy and vulnerability of the subject.

McPhail has commented on painting for him being less about the finished artwork, but instead the exploration of his subjects and the physical act of painting itself:

'The process is the most important thing for me, the time it takes, how long you are out of reality. The image is a side effect.'

Despite this desire to escape reality, one can sense that McPhail has revealed something quite intimate in Mother & Child.

The long-term partner of painter Jenny Saville, McPhail's own style too belongs to the uncompromising and powerful form of realism that characterises Saville's work, and Mother &Child highlights how the two artists have had a significant mutual influence on each other. Interestingly, the present work having been painted in the same year as Saville's Propped which still holds the auction world record for the highest price achieved for a living female artist.


McPhail's awards include a Lautrec Bursary, 1986; National Portrait Award, 1989; Haldane Trust Award, 1990; and Summers Scholarship, 1994. Among McPhail's group shows were the Royal Scottish Academy, 1989; The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries and Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, 1990; Bad Blood, Glasgow Print Studio, 1996; and Head, Houldsworth Fine Art, 1999. He had a solo exhibition at the East West Gallery in 1992. Glasgow University, Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians and Robert and Susan Summers hold examples.
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