λ Bill Jacklin (British b. 1943) Cherry Tree with Dog, Great Lawn Oil on canvas Signed, titled and dated 99-00 verso 198 x 244cm (77¾ x 96 in.) Provenance: Marlborough Fine Art, London Acquired from the above by the current owner Royal Academician Bill Jacklin initially studied graphic design before going back to painting, firstly at Walthamstow School of Art and then the Royal College of Art between 1964 and 1967. Whilst his early work centred on abstraction, from the mid-1970s onwards Jacklin moved towards figuration with a particular pre-occupation with the interplay between light and shadow and movement. The present work depicts Great Lawn, Central Park in New York. Jacklin moved to New York in 1985 where he focussed on producing 'urban portraits' of city life in all its different forms. Jacklin's depiction of Great Lawn owes as much to classical painting and influence of the French impressionists as it does to late the 20th century. His flowing, almost dreamlike figures, so reminiscent of Seurat's pointillist figures from over a century before, endow the work with a timeless quality. The artist captures a moment in time, the blurred figures suspended momentarily, the artist an unseen observer capturing that moment before the characters move along. In her essay from 1999, Phoebe Hoban asserts that Jacklin is "obsessed with the choreography of the moment; its blurred geometry of motion, its fleeting waltz of time." (from The Connected Vision, Marlborough, New York catalogue). The scale of the canvas in Cherry Tree with Dog, Great Lawn serves to envelop the viewer in the scene, inviting us to immerse ourselves for a moment in their world, whilst always remaining an observer. Jacklin was elected Royal Academician in 1991.