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Strike a Pose: Stephen Farthing and the Swagger Portrait
In 2024 paintings by artist Stephen Farthing RA were exhibited alongside the historic collections at Kenwood.
Since the 1970s Farthing has found inspiration in historic ‘swagger portraits’, including the series of portraits by Jacobean artist William Larkin in Kenwood’s Suffolk Collection. On the 50th anniversary of the year in which this collection was given to the public, Farthing’s contemporary responses were displayed at Kenwood in dialogue with some of the portraits that influenced his work.
The Artist
Stephen Farthing is an artist, writer and teacher. His first exhibition took place at the Royal College of Art Gallery in London in 1977 and he has since exhibited extensively around the world, including representing Britain at the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil in 1989. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1998.
Farthing has a respected career as an educator, notably at the Royal College of Art; the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford; the New York Academy of Art; and the University of the Arts London. He has written at length about painting and drawing, publishing and editing a number of books on art history.
The Exhibition
Stephen Farthing has long had a fascination with swagger portraiture, including the work of Jacobean artist William Larkin (c.1585–1619) in Kenwood’s Suffolk Collection.
In the four years leading up to the show Kenwood's Larkins prompted Farthing to create several new paintings and works on paper. These became the jumping-off point for the exhibition, which featured swagger portaits from across Farthing’s career in dialogue with some of the works that inspired them. These include John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Margaret ‘Daisy’ Howard, the Countess of Suffolk, who facilitated the gift of the Suffolk Collection to the nation 50 years ago.
Strike a Pose: Stephen Farthing and the Swagger Portrait was developed in collaboration with independent curator Paul Bonaventura and was part of the Creative Programme at English Heritage.
More on Farthing and the History of Swagger Portraits
In Residence at Kenwood
In conjunction with the exhibition, Stephen Farthing worked in Kenwood's Dairy over the course of the summer and autumn of 2024. There he created a new painting in response to John Hoppner’s portrait Mrs Jordan as Viola from ‘Twelfth Night’ – a work selected from Kenwood’s collections by volunteers and staff.
The residency provided opportunities for the public to interact with the artist and to learn more about his working processes, with the new painting revealed at the end of the show.