Duggie Fields, one of the new British conceptual figurative painters of the 70s and 80s has died.
His work was internationally influential, and his fashion sense was legendary. His friends were other influential brits like designers Zandra Rhodes and Pam Hogg, and artists Andrew Logan, and Kevin Whitney.
GQ editor Dylan Jones writes,
“I’ve just found out that #duggiefields has died. He was one of the greatest artists this country has ever produced, although the establishment was always very sniffy about him.
As I hadn’t seen him for some time, he was the first person I took to lunch when the first lockdown ended last year, and he told me about the awful disease he’d been fighting. But that was six months ago, and his health just deteriorated.
He was a lovely, lovely man and a huge, huge talent. His work was last on display at a group show, Them, in Cork Street early last year, although he deserves an enormous retrospective at the Tate. His flat, in West London (which he used to share with Syd Barrett), should be enshrined and protected, as it was – and still is – a living museum.
He was London through and through. We will miss you, Duggie x”.
Fields’ main influences were Jackson Pollock, Mondrian and comic books, with particular regard to those worked on by Stan Lee. In 1968, after his US visit, Fields lived in Earl’s Court Square and shared a flat with Syd Barrett, who had just left Pink Floyd.
By the middle of the 1970s, his work included many elements that were later defined as Post-modernist. In one painting, Marilyn Monroe is shown with her head severed.
I met him in NYC in the club scene with other Brits. I think maybe Simon Doonan or Miles Chapman introduced us, but everyone knew Duggie, and everyone liked him.
In 2002, he designed posters for Transport for London In 2013, he was taken to Los Angeles by artist and benefactor Amanda Eliasch with Pam Hogg for Opfashart, which Eliasch had put together for Britweek.
In 2016 Fields was celebrated by the British Film Institute FLARE with a collection of his videos.
Duggie Fields was 75.
(via Artlyst)