ALLEN JONES (B. 1937)

"In 1964, Joan Miro visited my studio in Wandsworth Common and complimented me on a painting that incidentally had been inspired by one of his own works that I had recently seen in the Guggenheim Museum, New York. In both cases a large vertical gesture of red paint was the central motif - a mark that became identified, for me, with the 'Life Force'.
This can be traced in various disguises throughout my work sometimes with female attributes, sometimes as a spear or spermatoza and even as my nose! The painting of 1984 was called Figure Falling (Wallraf Richartz Museum Cologne). In a sense the lamp I have designed for Aram stands this idea on its head." Allen Jones