Tom Phillips RA, A Humument: Gathered Scraps, 1 June 2020.
Watercolour and ink on bookpage. 330 mm x 245 mm. © The Artist's Estate. © Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London.
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A Humument: Gathered Scraps, 1 June 2020
Tom Phillips RA (1937 - 2022)
RA Collection: Art
This work relates to Tom Phillips' decades-long project A Humument, an art work created using WH Mallock's novel A Human Document (1892). Phillips drew and collaged over the original text as well as rewriting and reorganising the text to create a new story and artwork.
A Humument. Gathered Scraps is a colourful page, consisting of an assemblage of different pieces of paper, possibly from different sources. The colourful stains and black pen marks give an impression of black-out poetry. The words and phrases are shown at different angles, due to the scraps of pages being positioned in various, unconventional ways.
This work was produced for the Varnishing Day Portfolio: A Moment in Time project. With the onset of the global pandemic in Spring 2020, and for the first time in the history of the Royal Academy, the Summer Exhibition was postponed.The portfolio represents the first time that the community of Royal Academicians has collaborated on one piece of work as the project intended to document what this group of artists and architects were doing, thinking and making on 1 June 2020 (traditionally the annual RA celebration of 'Varnishing Day', the day when Royal Academicians traditionally celebrate the start of the Summer Exhibition and put the finishing touches to their works). The finished publication can be seen here https://shop.royalacademy.org.uk/varnishing-day-portfolio
Object details
330 mm x 245 mm
