Escalator

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Ben Johnson is known for his paintings ofarchitecture spaces and cityscapes. He hasoften depicted architectural interiors, which hereproduces in a realistic manner, with greatattention to detail. In many cases they offer hisviewer the sense of a first-hand view of aparticular architectural space, almost in thesame way as a photograph might. This ishowever a beguiling proposition, as Johnsonbrings to each of the spaces his owninterpretation of how they are presented. Hehas also repeatedly painted a singlearchitectural space to show how the samespace might have appeared over differentperiods of time. In this print he uses thescreenprinting process to overlay colours. Thisconveys a sense of looking through the glassbarrier that forms the artist’s viewpoint for thisparticular architectural scene.

Ben Johnson was born in Llandudno, Wales. He studied at the Royal College of Art, going straight on to his first solo exhibition in New York in 1969 soon after graduating. His work on the Liverpool Cityscape captures 170 hectares of the city, reproduced in acrylic on canvas as a vastly detailed bird’s eye view of the metropolis and is on view in the Museum of Liverpool. Johnson has exhibited his work in museums and galleries internationally and undertaken commissions for a variety of institutions from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to the British Museum and for HSBC and JP Morgan to IBM and Hong Kong Telecommunications. His work is included in museum collections including the V&A and the British Museum in London; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Places

Subjects

plant, window, escalator, commercial interior

Materials & Techniques

screenprint

Artist

Ben Johnson (1946 - )

Title

Escalator

Edition

35/125

Date

1975

Medium

Screenprint

Acquisition

Commissioned from the artist via Editions Alecto, 1975

Inscription

below image: 35/125 R.J. / Ben Johnson '75

Provenance

Commissioned by PSA 9/1975.

GAC number

12077/35