Visions of youth
At his death in 2004, Ælred Bartlett bequeathed an extraordinary series of paintings and sketches of young men, of which this is a small selection. Inspired by his love of Greece and his travels there over more than twenty years, these works follow his earlier studies of Greek coastal landscapes and everyday rural life.
Although portraiture is the starting-point, Bartlett is increasingly interested in formal experiment, with figures stylised in iconic postures against imaginary or painted-out backgrounds. How they are framed becomes integral too - the artist sometimes using a frame made and painted by him with colours from the picture, sometimes introducing a faux-frame into the painting itself.
The works - never exhibited in Bartlett's lifetime - nearly all date from his last major creative period in the 1980s.