The Mirror and the Lamp, 2008 by Bucklow

Christopher Bucklow (born 1957) is a British artist and art-historian.^[1] His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous public collections including the Guggenheim Museum,^[2] Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),^[3] Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (SFMoMA),^[4] and The Metropolitan Museum of Art^[5] among others. He has received residencies at The British Museum, London, the Banff Center for the Arts, Alberta, and The Centre for Studies in British Romanticism, Grasmere.^[6] Bucklow is best known for his ongoing photographic series Guests (1993–present)^[7] and his improvisational paintings from the series To Reach Inside A Vault (2006–present).^[8] He is the author of numerous books and essays including The Sea of Time and Space (Wordsworth Trust, 2004),^[9] "This is Personal: Blake and Mental Fight" in Blake & Sons, Lifestyles and Mysticism in Contemporary Art (University College, Cork, 2005), What is in the Dwat: The Universe of Guston's Final Decade (Wordsworth Trust, 2007),^[10] and the co-author of Bacon and the Mind: Art, Neuroscience and Psychology (Thames & Hudson, 2019).^[11]

Life and work

Bucklow was born in Flixton, Greater Manchester, England. He graduated with a degree in art history in 1978. Between 1978 and 1995 he worked as a curator in the Prints & Drawings Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London^[12] where he researched Romanticism, photography, and developed an interest in the work of William Blake (British, 1757 – 1827).^[13] An account of Bucklow's career as a curator and the forces that propelled his transition to art praxis can be found in "Rhetoric and Motive in the Writing of Art History: A Shapeshifter's Perspective" in Remaking Art History (Routledge, New York City; 2007).^[14]

Bucklow's early work (1989–91) was conceptual and sculptural, often taking the form of plant species that he altered genetically or grafted together.^[15] In the 1990s he created two bodies of  photographic work, The Beauty of the World (1991) and Guest - also known as Tetrarchs, that were foundational for Britain's contemporary negative-less photography movement^[16].

Guests was created using a 30 x 40-inch pinhole camera, built by Bucklow, with thousands of apertures to make unique cibachrome chromogenic prints.^[17] Tetrarchs were created using either a 40 x 60-inch camera, or one with a 40 x 100 inches plate size.^[18] Guest (1993–present) features silhouettes of persons that appear to the artist in dreams. Friends, family, and fellow artists like Matthew Barney and Adam Fuss^[19] are featured individually in the work as a collective of figures drawn by the multiple solar images directed through the 25,000 apertures in Bucklow's camera.^[20][21]

His interest in personal mythology, Jungian dream psychology, metaphor and the use of personification was continued in his subsequent paintings.^[22] To Reach Inside A Vault is a series of large scale improvisational paintings in which a commedia dell'arte technique is used to generate the subjects or plot.^[23] These paintings were exhibited in Bucklow's 2017 retrospective Said Now, For All Time at the Southampton City Art Gallery, UK.^[24]

Public collections

Museum of Modern Art, New York^[25]

Metropolitan Museum of Art^[26]

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum^[27]

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston^[28]

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth^[29]

Dallas Museum of Art^[30]

Victoria & Albert Museum^[31]

The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere

Honolulu Museum of Art

Herzliya Museum of Art^[32]

High Museum of Art^[33]

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston^[34]

Blanton Museum of Art,^[35]

Cleveland Museum of Art^[36]

Yale Center for British Art

Norton Museum, Palm Beach^[37]

Perez Art Museum Miami^[38]

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art^[39]

Los Angeles County Museum of Art^[40]

Publications

• Bucklow, Christopher. 'The Lens Within the Heart' in Martin Harrison (ed.) Bacon and the Mind: Art, Neuroscience and Psychology, The Estate of Francis Bacon & Thames & Hudson, London, 2019. ISBN 978-0-500-97097-3. LCCN 2018-966029 (A study of  psychological sources of Francis Bacon's imagery).
• Bucklow, Christopher. Nantucket Sleighride, Southampton City Art Gallery & Ball Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-9929938-4-9. (A study of the iconography of dreams).
• Bucklow, Christopher. Life on Mars, Southampton City Art Gallery & Ball Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-9929938-3-2 (A study of the generative phases leading to the creation of artworks).
• Bucklow, Christopher. 'The Child Comes as Softly as Snow', essay in Adam Fuss, Catalogue, Fundacion Mapfre, Madrid, 2011, pp. 159–171. ISBN 978-84-9844-278-6 (An iconographical study of the myths underlying Fuss' work).
• Bucklow, Christopher. 'St John's Apocalypse: Revelation, Resurrection, Rhetoric', essay in Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture, Front Forty Press, Chicago, 2008, n.p. ISBN 978-0-9778689-6-4 (An essay on dreaming and  the personal motives of prophets).
• Bucklow, Christopher. What is in the Dwat, The Universe of Philip Guston's Final Decade, Wordsworth Trust. 1 June 2007. ISBN 1-905256-21-3 (An iconographical study of Guston's late work).
• Bucklow, Christopher. 'Rhetoric and Motive in Writing Art History:  a Shape Shifter's Perspective', in Elizabeth C. Mansfield (ed.), Making Art History, Routledge, New York,  2007. ISBN 0-41537234-8 (An essay on the personal motives of  art historians).
• Bucklow, Christopher. 'This is Personal: Blake and Mental Fight', in Blake & Sons, Lifestyles and Mysticism in Contemporary Art, University College, Cork, 2005 pp. 131 – 139. ISBN 0 9502440 9 0 (An essay on the many versions of 'Blake' that scholars have created).
• Mellor and Hambourg, David Alan and Maria Morris. Christopher Bucklow: Guest, Blindspot Publications, New York, October 2004. Essays by David Alan Mellor and Maria Morris Hambourg. 50 colour plates.
• Bucklow, Christopher. 'William Blake: The Sea of Time and Space', If This Be Not I, The British Museum and the Wordsworth Trust, 2004, pp. 115–120. ISBN 1 870787 95 1 (An essay on William Blake and the invention of religion).
• If This Be Not I, British Museum and The Wordsworth Trust, 2004 (book). Essays by Marina Warner, Adam Phillips, Roger Malbert, Introduction by James Putnam.
• Bucklow, Christopher. Seven Beginnings to Guest, Artereal Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 2006 (Catalogue contains seven accounts of the possible genesis of the series).

Monographs

• 2017 Alex Faulkner et al. Said Now, For All Time, Southampton City Art Gallery. Preface by Martin Harrison.
• 2015 Alex Faulkner and Christopher Bucklow, Dimitri & Wenlop, Upton Noble, Ball Press, ISBN 978 0 9929938 1 8.
• 2004 Prof David Alan Mellor et al. Christopher Bucklow: Guest, Blindspot Publications, New York.
• 2004 Marina Warner et al. If This Be Not I, British Museum, London & Wordsworth Trust,  Grasmere, ISBN 1 870787 95 1 With an interview by Adam Philips.

References

External links

• chrisbucklow.com
• ArtCyclopedia