The Royal Academy is delighted to present an intimate display of recent work by Senior Academician Anthony Eyton as part of the ‘Academicians in Focus’ series.

“Objects fall off a shelf, still suspended. It is too wonderful to clear away, entropy presents opportunity. A large photograph pinned up behind, the ruins of Sindhia Ghat in Benares, confirms the idea of collapse. It has become a potent shrine commanding my total attention.” Anthony Eyton

We are proud to present an exhibition of new works by Senior Academician Anthony Eyton, which have been made in his home in Brixton. Many of the paintings explore a collapsed shelf in Eyton’s first floor studio, down which slides an avalanche of paint tubes, bottles and books and materials. This total concentration on one subject for a series of still lives has taken the artist into new territory. The resulting paintings celebrate total focus in meticulous detail on a corner of life in the studio. Representing an acute consciousness of the passing time and the fragility of existence, these dynamic images are dense with the rich colour and expressive mark-making for which Eyton is renowned.

On the wall behind the subject, Eyton has displayed a large photograph of the ruins of Sindhia Ghat, in Benaras. Eyton has travelled to India many times and his discovery of this image coincided with his starting to make the “shelf paintings”.

Eyton was elected a Royal Academician in 1986 and continues to work with passion and energy into his 95th year. Eyton currently lives and works in London.