Maggi Hambling CBE is best known as a painter of people, but animals feature prominently. She attempts to envision the fantasy into likeness from such subjects as night clubs, pubs & arenas.

A painter of imagination, through gestures & vibrant colours. She manages to capture movement in the figures with swirling brushstrokes & just slight blurring of the torso. The raffish humour seeps through the canvas, all done with such dexterity as can be seen in the Max Wall paintings & many other figurative paintings.

Hambling completed a series of Sunrises, one called Smiling Sunrise painted in cobalt blue.

Many paintings of Orwell Estuary & others in St Ives, Cornwall were done on the spot in watercolour. Some were worked on later in the studio in oils.

The Laughter series all have a wonderful spontaneity. A wordless, visual expression all too difficult to put onto canvas, but Maggi Hambling manages to capture them with joyous vibrant colours of ultramarines & reds.

Maggi Hambling started working in the early 1990s on three-dimensional works in clay of highly coloured spindly creatures. One can see how she was influenced by Giacometti, although Klee's humorous drawings come to mind. It was a splendid exhibition.

Her statue of Oscar Wilde can be seen close to the National Gallery site. It is a delightful sculpture. She has managed to capture the spirit of the man.

The technique of the bronze sculpture is that of the ancient lost-wax method of casting. The shape is drawn out onto sand & then the indentations are filled with melted wax. This framework is then built up & cast in bronze. It looks as if it has been sculpted with a brush done in the style of one of the impressionists. He sits on the plinth {made out of Brazilian granite with flecks of gold that sparkle} reclining & gazing up at the sky, the inscription reads "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"

Maggi Hambling's sculpture of Oscar Wilde

Maggi Hambling's delightful scallop shell sculpture at Aldburgh's beach.

The sculpture is 12ft high splayed steel.  It is a tribute to the composer Benjamin Britten & and it reads "I hear those voices that will not be drowned", words from Britten's opera Peter Grimes.

For the last 30 years she has been teaching life classes at Morley College, London.

Maggi Hambling's official website, supported by the artist, is at: http://www.maggihambling.com

Maggi Hambling was awarded the CBE in the Queen's New Year Honours list at the start of 2010.  The honour was awarded for the artist's services to art.

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You can see twenty or so of Hambling's works online here at the BBC 'Your Paintings' website.

An exhibition of new sea paintings called "Waves Breaking" was at the University Gallery, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne in the autumn of 2007.

An exhibition of Maggi Hambling's drawings called "No Straight Lines" were shown at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and at Abbot Hall, Kendall in 2007.

An exhibition by Maggi Hambling "Portraits of People & the Sea" was at Marlborough Fine Art, 6 Albemarle Street London W1 in 2006.
It included portraits of Samuel Beckett, David Sylvester, John Berger, Stephen Fry, Sir Michael Gambon, Amanda Barrie, Giovanna Sebastian Horsley & the Dalai Lama. www.marlboroughfineart.com

Works by Maggi Hambling could have been seen at the National Theatre, Lyttelton Circle, Foyer Gallery in 2005. Called “The Telling Eye” John Berger Visual Collaborations with Jean Mohr & John Christie.

Hambling's portrait of Michael Jackson went on display at Marlborough Fine Arts Summer show on July 27 2004.

The Marlborough Gallery staged an exhibition of paintings, drawings & bronzes of Henrietta Moraes by Maggi Hambling in 2001.

Father by Maggi Hambling was at the Morley Gallery
61 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 in 2001

There was an exhibition of Maggi Hambling's drawings, paintings & sculptures based on the theme "Good Friday", all completed within the previous 30 years.
The exhibition was at Gainsborough House in Sudbury, Suffolk in 2000.

Updated 12^th October 2011