Peacock

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

At first glance this colour etching does not appear to depict the peacock of its title. However, the longer you look at it the more visible the bird becomes. The outline of its body and magnificent tail is highlighted in red, while the other colours, purple and yellow, serve to emphasize the male bird’s plumage.
Much of Agathe Sorel’s work has explored parallel developments in the arts and sciences, including theories of perspective and dimensionality. It is perhaps of little surprise then that she should be interested in the peacock. The brilliant colours of the bird’s plumage are caused by an optical phenomenon called Bragg Reflection, whereby overlapping colours combine and refract in order to create shimmering iridescent hues. As well as printmaking, Sorel also works in sculpture and watercolour, and has produced illustrations for books.

Born in Budapest, Agathe Sorel first studied art in Hungary from 1955, before fleeing from the Hungarian Revolution to London in 1956, where she enrolled at the Camberwell College of Art to study printmaking. In 1958 she won the Gulbenkian Scholarship and moved to Paris to study at the Ecoles des Beaux Arts, the Sorbonne and etching under S. W. Hayter at Atelier 17. Sorel set up a print workshop in Fulham with her husband, the painter and designer Gabor Sitkey in 1960. Her first solo exhibition was at Curwen Gallery, London, in 1965. That same year she was a Founder member of Printmakers' Council and later Chairman from 1981 to 1983. Alongside her practice, she taught at Camberwell and Maidstone Colleges (from 1960) and Goldsmiths College of Art (from 1966). Her 1989 major exhibition ‘Space Engravings & other works by Agathe Sorel’, at the Herbert Read Gallery, toured to the United States, Sweden and Germany. A solo exhibition was held at the Bradford Museum, Cartwright Hall in 2012.

Places

Subjects

abstract, peacock

Materials & Techniques

etching, colour etching

Artist

Agathe Sorel (1935 - )

Title

Peacock

Edition

5/30

Date

1962

Medium

Colour etching

Acquisition

Purchased from Editions Alecto, October 1965

Inscription

below image: 5/30 / PEACOCK / Agathe Sorel 1962

GAC number

L1