Great leap forward

Andrew Lambirth on Maggi Hambling’s forceful seascapes and Rose Wylie’s quirky art

Let me at once state an interest: I have just written a book with Maggi Hambling about her life and works, currently available from all good booksellers. But long and intimate knowledge of an artist’s oeuvre should not disqualify the critic from writing more; in fact, it’s to be hoped that experience may bring with it increased insight and understanding. So let me say at the outset that, in her new paintings at the Marlborough, Hambling (born 1945) has produced something remarkable — an extension of her territory as an artist and a great leap forward in terms of her mastery of paint.

As the title of this exhibition — Maggi Hambling: Portraits of People and the Sea — suggests, Hambling maintains that she paints only one kind of picture: portraits, whether of people or the sea. This is a little difficult to take for those who like their portraits to look like one thing, and their seascapes another. The relationship in Hambling’s work is indeed far closer. Portraiture suggests the vivid description of the individual, and this is precisely what Hambling achieves, whether it be an individual person or a wave. Look at ‘Henrietta/North Sea Wave’, which hangs at the front of the gallery. In this painting the features of Henrietta Moraes, Queen of Soho and Hambling’s close friend and muse (she was the subject after her death of a moving exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Marlborough in 2000), emerge from the cresting swirls of a large wave. Here a sort of fusion has taken place: the muse on land and the muse of the sea have become one. The colours Hambling uses to delineate the face in the water are pitched high above the grey of the sea: vivid green, orange, blue.