Townsend is delighted to present A Portrait of Legacy, an online exhibition that showcases the practice of London-based artist Hugh Mendes. Perhaps best known for his ongoing series of obituary paintings, especially of artists, Mendes also engages politics and popular culture. Broadly, A Portrait of Legacy is a survey of Mendes’ career beginning with his formative work, Dead Dad (1999), and highlights pivotal developments in the trajectory of his practice. Mendes’ work can be viewed as an act of documenting history, an indexing that is created simultaneous to the establishment of his own legacy. 

Hugh Mendes was born on Armistice Day in 1955 in the British Military Hospital at Hostert, Germany. From the age of six, Mendes knew he wanted to be an artist. Perhaps his greatest influence was his mother, Beryl, who exposed Mendes to art very early in his life. She had taken up oil painting as a form of therapy and introduced him to painting and key art historical figures such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Picasso. The idea of being a painter fascinated the young Mendes, and a tragic turn of events led him further down this path. Beryl died when he was seven and he inherited her oil paints, brushes, and easel, an inheritance that would profoundly shape him as an artist.  Another core influence was Mendes’ father, Henry, who worked briefly as a newspaper editor, before becoming a translator. This job led to professional relocations: the Mendes family lived initially in Germany, then moved to Ottawa, Canada, before returning to their native England when Mendes was six.

Mendes initially studied Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art in the late ’70s, his teachers included David Hockney, Euan Uglow, Craigie Aitchison, and David Medalla (very recently deceased at the time of this writing; a work currently in progress by Mendes). All of these artists were extremely influential, teaching Mendes what it meant to be an artist along with very practical teachings in the use of oil paint and painting techniques. Years of keeping up his art practice was followed by a relocation to the United States, where Mendes taught for seven years, but came to an abrupt end upon the death of his father, Henry, in 1998.

Like the untimely passing of his mother decades earlier, the death of the artist’s father was also significant for him. Mendes, who had spent time bedside grieving the loss, documented the last encounter with his father as an act of remembrance a year later. This formative work, Dead Dad (also known as The Artist’s Father, deceased) painted in 1999, represents the origin of Mendes’ obituary paintings. He subsequently enrolled in the Master of Arts program at City and Guilds of London Art School, a decision that was the direct result of the passing of Mendes’ father. This precipitated a return to England from San Francisco where he had been living and working.

While attending City and Guilds of London, a studio visit Mendes had with Paul Hedge, the Director of Hales Gallery, was critical in the establishment of the foundational elements of his practice.  In the course of conversation, Hedge observed newspaper clippings among Mendes’ brushes, paints, and canvases. Hedge asked him whether he would consider incorporating the actual clipping into the composition, a transformation of source material into the painting’s subject and a transition from the simple still life paintings he was working on. From this critique, the artist’s seminal work 20 years ago today (Lennon Memorial) (2001) was born. This crucial development for Mendes opened a door for him to further explore the conceptual underpinnings of his practice and examine anew the relationship to his chosen subject matter.

Mendes’ MA exhibition, the culmination of his studies at City and Guilds, presented a series of paintings that included a depiction of Al Gore, George W. Bush, and a then unknown Arab with a gun pointing at them. His subjects were figures who had recently appeared in international news, Al Gore and George W. Bush made headlines over the close presidential election results — ultimately decided in the Supreme Court of the United States — and the Islamic figure was a representative archetype of the burgeoning rise of radicalized power in the Middle East. Mendes’ exhibition opened on September 11, 2001. The next day, the anonymous subject of his painting was identified as Osama Bin Laden, and the prescient exhibition propelled Mendes on a trajectory which would include political works as an essential, ongoing theme.

Having completed his MA, Mendes established his own studio in London. His affinity to newspapers grew and provided a necessary link to local and global news and communities. Mendes stayed diligently apprised of current events and a destabilizing reality emerged. Mendes began to witness deaths among his mentors and colleagues such as Euan Uglow, Craigie Aitchison, and Tom Lubbock, but also noticed unusual image based obituaries were appearing in The Independent newspaper of celebrities, and other well known iconic figures. Mendes’ initial obituary paintings were a response to this and he began to memorialize these artists, historians, critics, and icons through his work. The process of painting their obituaries in “real time” became central to his practice and served as personal reflection, but also as an act of documenting history.

The obituary project became the heart of Mendes’ practice, and he continued to work responsively and with devotion. The process of making obituary paintings was occasion for the artist to consider broader communities, present and past, and to contemplate his place among them. Initially Mendes focused on his contemporaries, but soon expanded his focus and looked back at 500 years of painting in Western art. What emerged from this massive undertaking was a further appreciation of the canonical painters who have fiercely influenced the trajectory of art, but also those who had been marginalized or overlooked by history. Legacy, and the uncertainty of legacy, emerged as latent tropes. 

From the groundbreaking work Dead Dad painted in 1999 until 2016, Mendes honed his practice rigorously and methodically. A crucial development on the horizon in 2016, Mendes began conceiving of a new work, the prominent British painter Lucian Freud its subject. During his preparatory research Mendes began revisiting Freud’s work and connected to a certain self-portrait.  Mendes was reminded of the unique qualities of self-portraits, and their role in Western art.

Obituary: Lucian Freud (2016), became a pivotal iteration in Mendes’ ongoing series of obituary paintings. For this work, he swapped out the published image from Freud’s obituary with one of the late artist’s painted self-portraits. The reimagined process — artist embodying artist — was revelatory for Mendes. The new strategy enabled him to reflect more intensely and intimately which engendered a sense of empathy with his subject. The work signaled a shift form his previous methods, renewed his recognition of the significance of the self-portrait, and expanded the conceptual guidelines of his practice. 

Mendes continues to innovate and build upon these pillars of his practice. Through art history, politics, and popular culture, he maintains vital connections to the past, present, and future, and approaches his practice with duty and destiny.

IN THE STUDIO

Examples of Mendes’ preparatory collages. The size and scale of Mendes’ paintings are based on the proportions of published obituaries.

The painting Obituary: Lucian Freud (2016), is the first instance of Mendes swapping out the image published in the decedents’ obituaries for a self-portrait that would then be inserted into the composition.

Creative image selection for certain obituaries: It is typical for obituaries written for photographers, illustrators, and graphic designers to publish one of their iconic works rather than their photographic portrait.