Christopher Bucklow (born 1957) is a British artist and art-historian. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous public collections including the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: * The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Ne ...

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(MoMA), Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (SFMoMA), and

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

among others. He has received residencies at

The British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, London, the

Banff Center for the Arts Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (formerly Banff Centre) is an arts and culture educational institution in Banff, Alberta. It offers arts programs in the performing and fine arts, as well as leadership training. It was established in 193 ...

, Alberta, and The Centre for Studies in British Romanticism, Grasmere. Bucklow is best known for his ongoing photographic series ''Guests'' (1993–present) and his improvisational paintings from the series ''To Reach Inside A Vault'' (2006–present). He is the author of numerous books and essays including ''The Sea of Time and Space'' (

Wordsworth Trust The Wordsworth Trust is an independent charity in the United Kingdom. It celebrates the life of the poet William Wordsworth, and looks after Dove Cottage in the Lake District village of Grasmere where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordswor ...

, 2004), "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), and the co-author of ''

Bacon Bacon is a type of Curing (food preservation), salt-cured pork made from various cuts of meat, cuts, typically the pork belly, belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central in ...

and the Mind: Art,

Neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

and

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

'' (Thames & Hudson, 2019).

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 The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

, London where he researched

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

, photography, and developed an interest in the work of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

(British, 1757 – 1827). 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 Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, New York City; 2007). Bucklow's early work (1989–91) was conceptual and sculptural, often taking the form of plant species that he altered genetically or grafted together. 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''.'' ''Guests'' was created using a 30 x 40-inch

pinhole camera A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the so-called ''Pinhole (optics), pinhole'')—effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects a ...

, built by Bucklow, with thousands of

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

s to make unique cibachrome

chromogenic In chemistry, the term chromogen refers to a colourless (or faintly coloured) chemical compound that can be converted by chemical reaction into a compound which can be described as "coloured" (a chromophore). There is no universally agreed definiti ...

prints. ''Tetrarchs'' were created using either a 40 x 60-inch camera, or one with a 40 x 100 inches plate size. ''Guest'' (1993–present) features

silhouette A silhouette (, ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhouett ...

s of persons that appear to the artist in dreams. Friends, family, and fellow artists like

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

and Adam Fuss are featured individually in the work as a collective of figures drawn by the multiple

solar Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

images directed through the 25,000

s in Bucklow's camera. His interest in personal mythology,

Jungian Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their s ...

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensation (psychology), sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around ...

psychology, metaphor and the use of personification was continued in his subsequent paintings. ''To Reach Inside A Vault'' is a series of large scale improvisational paintings in which a ''

commedia dell'arte Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Theatre of Italy, Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is a ...

'' technique is used to generate the subjects or plot. These paintings were exhibited in Bucklow's 2017 retrospective ''Said Now, For All Time'' at the

Southampton City Art Gallery The Southampton City Art Gallery is an art gallery in Southampton, southern England. It is located in the Civic Centre on Commercial Road. The gallery opened in 1939 with much of the initial funding from the gallery coming from two bequests, o ...

, UK.

Public collections

, New York

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...

Herzliya Museum of Art

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent co ...

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

Yale Center for British Art The Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in central New Haven, Connecticut, houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. The collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, rare ...

Norton Museum, Palm Beach Perez Art Museum Miami

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

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 Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

, London, 2019. . (A study of psychological sources of Francis Bacon's imagery). *Bucklow, Christopher. ''Nantucket Sleighride'',

& Ball Press, 2017. . (A study of the iconography of dreams). *Bucklow, Christopher. ''Life on Mars'',

& Ball Press, 2017. (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. (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. (An essay on dreaming and the personal motives of prophets). *Bucklow, Christopher. ''What is in the Dwat, The Universe of

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...

's Final Decade'',

. 1 June 2007. (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'',

, New York, 2007. (An essay on the personal motives of art historians). *Bucklow, Christopher. 'This is Personal:

Blake Blake or Blake's may refer to: People * Blake (given name), a given name of English origin (includes a list of people with the name) * Blake (surname), a surname of English origin (includes a list of people with the name) ** William Blake (1757 ...

and Mental Fight', in ''Blake & Sons, Lifestyles and Mysticism in Contemporary Art'', University College, Cork, 2005 pp. 131 – 139. (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 David Alan Mellor (1948–2023) was a British curator, professor and writer. He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's J. Dudley Johnston Award and Education Award. Life and career David Mellor — as he was called before he began usi ...

and Maria Morris Hambourg. 50 colour plates. *Bucklow, Christopher. 'William Blake: The Sea of Time and Space', ''If This Be Not I'',

and the

, 2004, pp. 115–120. (An essay on William Blake and the invention of religion). *''If This Be Not I'',

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

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'',

. Preface by Martin Harrison. *2015 Alex Faulkner and Christopher Bucklow, ''Dimitri & Wenlop'', Upton Noble, Ball Press, . *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 &

, Grasmere, With an interview by Adam Philips.

References

External links

chrisbucklow.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bucklow, Christopher Photographers from Lancashire People from Flixton, Greater Manchester Living people 1957 births British contemporary artists