Bob Law
1934 - 2004
Laundry marker on duck canvas
He was arguably the foremost British minimalist artist of the 1970s, yet somehow, he has become almost forgotten - written out of the narratives of post-war art, whether British or international. What makes this puzzling is the fact that - the quality of the work aside - once Law had received critical attention in the early 1960s, he seems to have had all the opportunities to sustain his art and career. By the standards of his time, he had a stellar cast of supporters.
He was exhibited at Konrad Fischer and the Lisson Gallery, collected by Alan Power and Giuseppe Panza and, in 1977, was the subject of a major Whitechapel retrospective curated by Nicholas Serota and Sandy Nairne. It was a tiny yet influential group, but the art world was a tiny place.
By 1957 he was in St Ives, meeting Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon and other artists. The landscapes of Nicholson may be seen as a starting point for Law’s mature work when considering the way each artist defines the area of the landscape on the paper. During this time, he began to read widely in philosophy, mysticism, alchemy and palaeontology. He had a particular interest in the writings of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Peter D. Ouspensky and Richard Jefferies.
Law’s first mature works the Field drawings and paintings - bring together his technical skills in draftsman ship and carpentry. As a craftsman, Law was highly skilled. He made furniture early on his career, according to the artist, often as a substitute for sculpture.
In 1970 he began to make his own stretchers for his paintings, seeing that process as fundamental to the creation of the whole work. He built sculpture for Donald Judd for his first London exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in 1973.
In the early 1980s he turned to carpentry again, fabricating his furniture-sculptures, particularly chairs. Perfect execution and technical competence were integral parts of his creative process.
Bob Law was never fully part of any school or style and whilst he could be positioned at the margins of successive artistic movements, such placement was never permanent, convincing or comfortable. While some of his works were conceptual in nature, he was seldom included in Conceptual art survey exhibitions.
As he returned to sculpture in the early 1980s, this was not as part of the New British Sculpture. He was seen primarily as a painter despite his early sculpture (he was also far older than any of the other artists in that group). Despite this Law continued to be productive and towards the end of the 1980s had two solo exhibitions in Karsten Schuberfs Charlotte Street gallery.