Kate

Celia Paul describes her work as autobiographical as she paints and draws only those she loves. 'If you know them really well you don’t have to be so literal, you can take liberties,' she has said.1 Created ‘from life’, these intimate portraits of family and friends, often seen in solitude in sparse undecorated surroundings, are soft and contemplative; there is a quietness to them. In this print, Paul presents her younger sister Kate sitting on a bed, looking directly at us. For three decades, from 1977–2007, Paul’s mother was her model, sitting for her weekly and only stopping when she could no longer climb the 80 stairs to Paul’s studio. Since then, Paul has concentrated on her four sisters.

1. Jackie Wullschlager, ‘Artist Celia Paul explores the beauty of melancholy’, Financial Times, London, 2 Sep 2016, ft.com/content/d29dbb44-6ae7-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a28c, accessed 23 Mar 2021