Cecily Brown, British born 1969, active the US

from an exhibition – Death and the Maid – at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY  in 2023

and a mid-career retrospective – Themes and Variations – at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia until May 12, 2025

 

 

 

 

The painter, Cecily Brown, defines herself as a realist painter.

She trained partly in England and partly in the US and moved permanently to New York in 1994.

 

 

 

 

BFF, 2006-2015, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Promised gift to and on exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

The painting – to which the artist returned years after she had begun it – is named for the advice from one of the artist’s earliest mentors, the British artist, Maggi Hambling, to become friends with her work.  

 

 

She is a close student of the Western art tradition and has sought to re-interpret a number of its major subjects for their relevance to our times.  The artist has said that she is interested in the ways men and women co-exist or do not. 

 

Her own art, it would seem, sways between her control of her brush and the brush’s control of her improvisational movements like those associated with the Abstract Expressionists.

 

The artists draws on these subjects from the Western canon. She may incorporate more than one of these themes in a single work.

 

*vanity – vanitas 

* memento mori 

*The female nude, sexual autonomy, and sexual violence

*Gardens as a setting for courtship and the play of love

*Shipwrecks and sirens 

 

Cecily Brown and art professionals make reference to a good number of artists of the Western tradition who have influenced her:  these include Titian, Giorgioni, Frans Snyders, Theodore Géricault, Henry Fuseli, Manet, Magritte, Walter Sickert.

 

 

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Vanitas

speaks to Christian teaching about human vanity, self-indulgence and  greed; and the fact that we live as though oblivious of the brevity of our lives

 

 

 

The  Vanitas, 1603, oil on wood

Jacques de Gheyn II, Netherlandish, Antwerp, 1565-1629. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY from whose website this image

Thought to be one of the earliest independent representations of Vanitas – a symbolic depiction of human vanity and self-seeking.

 

 

 

Memento Mori, the reminder of death, is intimately linked to the theme of Vanitas:

 

 

 

One figure – a memento mori –  in a rosary, ivory, silver and partially gilded mounts. 

Carved in Germany, c.1500-1525.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY from whose website this photo

 

 

 

Self indulgence and greed are behavioural components of Vanitas. 

17th century Dutch and Flemish art of tables overladen with the food and drink of insatiable greed has much interested the artist in her work on Vanitas.

 

 

 

Still Life: A Banqueting Scene, 1640-41, oil on canvas

Jan Davidsz de Heem, Dutch, 1606–1683/84. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY from whose website this image

 

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The artist is much admired for her melding of figuration and abstract expressionism. 

She began to achieve commercial success before she was 30.  From the late 1990s onwards, she has been able to concentrate on her artistic evolution exclusively.

 

I have sympathy for artists who engage directly with the Western art tradition: an intimidating venture so freighted is it with its history, symbols, status, exclusions, meaning and teaching.  

 

But I don’t enjoy Cecily Brown’s work much.  Most of it seems, to my eye, to be a chaos of smudgy simulations.

 

I find it repetitive with nothing to hold the eye while you are in the gallery; or the memory once you have left it.

 

If there had not been explanations attached to these exhibitions and to some of the paintings, I would not have known what they were about.  

 

Most disappointing is that her work is, very often, unreadable. 

I have no way of knowing the intended subject of this work  without its label which I missed.

 

 

 

TBD 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. On exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

 

Unlike the tradition to which it is attached, these works, while they require significant attention to figure out what, if anything, is going on, led me to nothing: neither to reflection, nor self-reflection.  And certainly not to wonderment or questioning.

 

 

 

Saboteur four times, 2019, oil on linen and oil on UV-curable pigment on linen, in four parts

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private collection loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

The artist digitally reproduced the image of an earlier canvas to create three additional prints.  Each new print she then treated differently.

 

 

 

These images, of course, have meaning in the history of Cecily Brown’s artistic development;

 

but if  she holds that she is a realist, a figurative artist, and yet her work has to be explained to us, it is, in effect, her private journey and her use of the iconography of the Western tradition in an idiosyncratic way to her own ends.

 

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This work, to me, seems a reflection of a particular incongruity.

This incongruity I felt at both exhibitions:  a most seductive and energetic attempt was made to suggest that I was seeing x when what I was seeing is y.

 

Reality represented as a scrambled mess on a canvas is a mess.

 

And that it is not my eyes/mind that were deceiving me but an artist working out her own salvation in combination with a particular interpretation by herself and art professionals to render her work coherent (and commercial).

 

Incongruities of this kind – some innocent and without nefarious effect  as here, and some extremely malign – are our everyday fare (fate) in many aspects of our lives.

 

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This said, it is possible that it is I who am lacking in imagination.  It is possible that my ageing eyes are beginning to tire and that I am growing ungenerous and old-age-cynical.

 

I would like to repeat that Cecily Brown’s work is much valued by many who have seen it and who find in it something superlative, rich, exciting;  something to exult about in its energy and sensuality and its invitation to the insertion of your imagination in her mass of shapes, colours and lines.

 

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Vanitas and Memento mori

 

 

Father of the Bride, 1999, oil on linen.  

Cecily Brown, British born 1969.  Buffalo Art Museum loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

A painting proposed by the Met as an example of the artist’s adaptation of Abstract Expressionist style.

 

 

 

 

The Only Game in Town, 1998, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

The artist’s first representation of a woman facing a mirror.  She sees the horrible reflection, mouth gaping open, of her own self-absorption and vanity.

 

 

 

 

Untitled (Vanity), 2005, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

Based on a 1902 illustration of a Gibson Girl gazing at her reflection of in a mirror, here a woman stares at her own reflection. She merges with her reflection to form a death’s head.

 

 

 

 

Untitled (Chambre), 2005, monotype.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

 

 

 

Hangover Square, 2005, oil on canvas. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

A room full of what would appear to be drunken disarray.

 

 

 

 

Aujourd’hui Rose, 2005, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

The artist’s source was a popular postcard c. 1900, inscribed “Pink today, tomorrow”.  Death is not far even in youth.

 

 

 

 

 

All is Vanity, (After Gilbert), 2006, monotype. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Memento Mori I, 2006-08, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

The inspiration of this painting is a Victorian poem, ‘Fidgety Philip’ in which a little boy, rocking to and fro, tips over and crashes everything on a dining room table when he grabs the edge of the tablecloth to try to save himself.

 

 

 

 

Carnival and Lent, 2006-08, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

The inspiration of this painting is Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559, by the Flemish Pieter Bruegel the Elder, where there is a battle between figures who are feasting and those who are fasting.

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled (Aujourd’hui Rose), 2007, monotype. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

 

 

 

Vanity, oil and inkjet on linen, 2019-20.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

Pale blue and peach tones of late 19th French painting in an image for which the ground was a digital print of one of her own compositions.

 

 

 

 

Selfie, 2020, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

Covid-19 had broken out.  The room is crammed full of stuff. Taking photos of oneself and one’s surrounding had become a prominent feature of the lives of many.

 

 

 

 

Maid in a Landscape, 2021, oil on linen

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

Death is dancing close with a maiden.

 

 

 

 

Vanity Shipwreck, 2021-22, oil on linen.  

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

A small nude seated at her vanity floats on a stormy sea with shipwreck floating all around her. Skulls are also floating in this water.

 

 

 

 

Death and the Maid, 2022, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

This is based on an 1894 print by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) of an embrace between a woman and a skeletal personification of Death.

 

 

 

Opulent greed , the groaning table, and the overwhelmed room

 

 

The Picnic, 2006, oil on linen in 3 parts. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

This is the remnant of a sumptuously laid table with wraith-like figures hovering around it.

 

 

 

 

Lobsters, Oysters, Cherries, and Pearls, 2020, oil on canvas

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. On exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

This image includes a number of luxuries found in 17th century  Dutch and Flemish still lifes including lobster and cherries.

 

 

 

 

 

Panel on our left

 

Panel on our right

 

Details from central panel

The Splendid Table, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Dallas Museum of Art loan to the Barnes Foundation in 2025

 

This tryptich was created for the artist’s show at Blenheim Palace in England and recalls the hunt which is a spectacle of the uneven combat between humans and certain animals.

“…you had this kind of endless feast of death unfolding,” the artist has said.

 

 

 

A Hunting Scene, 2020, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

Nature Morte, 2020, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

 

 

 

Picture This, 2020, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

This would seem to be private quarters during the Covid-19 epidemic, crammed with stuff.

 

 

 

 

Interior (Carousel), 2020-2021, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

The Spell, 2021, oil on UV-curable ink on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

A Year on Earth, 2020-21, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

  Painted during the claustrophobia of Covid-19, two people are tangled together in a room full of clutter.

 

 

 

Women, female flesh, sexual autonomy, sexual violence

 

 

Spree, oil on linen, 1999

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

High Society, 1998, oil on linen 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

The sex and violence of the Rape of the Sabine Women, a painting of c.1635-40 by Peter Paul Rubens, is a source for this image.

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1998, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan (promised gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY) to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

Bunnies have been a theme of the artist since the 1980’s both for their stand-in as Playboy women; and   for their role as prey in the hunt.

 

 

 

 

On The Town, 1998, oil on linen

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

Black Painting 4, 2003, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Rubell Museum, Washington DC and Miami loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

One of several ‘black’ paintings which turned the tide of attention to the artist’s work.

 

 

 

 

Justify My Love, 2003-04, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

A painting of a masturbating woman is given the name of a Madonna song from 1990, banned by MTV for suggestion of bisexuality, group sex, voyeurism and BDSM.

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 2005, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

This image is loosely based on the story of the Biblical Susanna on whom men are spying while she is bathing.  

The artist is said to have borrowed Magritte’s surrealist imagery when she has Susanna unconventionally eating a bird. 

“I wanted them to be doing something, especially if they were female. I didn’t want them to be sitting there for your gaze,”the artist has said of her women who are doing something in her paintings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No You For Me, 2013, oil on linen. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

This is an overstuffed boudoir where an emotional tragedy is registering.

The occupant, reflected in the mirror, is lying on a bed.  The small head of a Black woman to the right of the woman’s head may be a reminder of the Black woman who brought flowers to the distracted Olympia in Manet’s painting of 1863.

At the front of the picture is a host of lotions and perfumes and toiletries. 

 

 

 

 

Body After Sickert, 2022, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969.  Private loan to the Barnes Collection, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

Shipwreck

 

 

Blood, Water, Fruit, and Corpses, 2017, oil on linen.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 One of a series of paintings about migration and and shipwreck.

 

 

 

 

Three untitled paintings between 2016 and 2018 in watercolour, gouache and in which both sirens and a shipwreck are involved.

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loans to the Barnes Foundation in 2025

 

 

 

 

 

Madrepora (Alluvial), 2017, gouache, watercolour and pastel on paper. 

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

One of a series inspired by Theodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19).

In 1816, a French ship, Medusa, sank off the west coast of Africa.  At least 147 people were carried on a shoddily-built raft.  The captain and companions reached safety in a smaller boat. In the next 13 days, all but 15 people were left alive on the raft. 

The artist’s interest is also that there are tragedies of this kind continuing in a great migration of people towards Europe.

 

 

 

Black Shipwreck, 2018, oil on linen

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

we didn’t mean to go to sea, 2018, oil on linen

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Private loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

Gardens, Love in a Garden

 

 

Figures in a Landscape 2, oil on linen, 2002

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. Broad Foundation loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025

 

 

 

 

 

Girl on a Swing, 2004, oil on linen

Cecily Brown, British born 1969. National Gallery, Washington DC loan to the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia in 2025