A Place Called Space: Euan Uglow - An Arc from the Eye

Saturday, 10 October 2026

Euan Uglow - An Arc from the Eye

'Art is an artifice ... it's nothing to do with being true to life. You're trying to construct a new world so it can stand: nothing to do with illusionism'. Euan Uglow.

Euan Uglow - An Arc from the Eye

at the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes.

When I saw the brustrokes in the painting that featured in the poster for this exhibition, I just had to go and see it. And I was not disappointed. It is a wonderful exhibition and it's so exciting discovering a new artist.

Euan Uglow (1932-200) was known for his close observation and precise technique, often working on a single painting for several years whilst working on three or four paintings at a time. He would construct set-ups or arrangements of models and objects in order to experiment with different ways of depicting perspective, light and colour. Working in an almost mathematical way, Uglow left on the canvas the dashes or crosses that came upon measuring. In his still lifes especially, this also registered how the pasage of time changed his subjects.

Influencers:

The exhibition opens with works by five artists who taught or influenced him: Paul Cezanne, Alberto Giacometti and William Coldstream, Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers.

Paul Cezanne, The Painter's Father, Louis-August Cezanne, 1865, (oil on plaster, later mounted on canvas)

Cezanne wrote that an artist should aim to give 'concrete expression to his sensations, his perceptions, by means of line and colour'. In his twenties, he made this painting of his father reading a neewspaper, directly onto a wall of their home.

Uglow said that Cezanne helped him dare to 'follow my most awkward, foolish, passions and obsessions'. Looking at Cezanne made him aware 'that the smallest shift in viewpoint would result in a quite different picture'.

Alberto Giacometti, Diego, 1950, (oil on canvas)

Uglow said that Giacometti 'gave you the courage to try and do what you could'. That Giacometti 'seemed to be trying to solve some of the problems that I was tryhing to solve as a painter: trying to make something work in space. And not with any formula but with distillation'.

William Coldstream, Two Female Nudes in the Studio, 1953-54, (oil on canvas)

Goldstream was one of Uglow's most influential tutors while studying at both Camberwell and Slade Schools of Art. Goldstream had developed a method of painting in which he stood in one spot, held his arm out to the subject with one eye shut and measured, taking in fixed vertical and horizontal lines. His goal was to see objectively and afresh.

Victor Pasmore, Rectangular Motif: Red and Mustard, 1950, (oil on canvas)

Passmore was Uglow's tutor. His influence can be seen in Uglow's use of colour and geometry, as well as the importance of process in his work.

Euan Uglow, Girl with Light Hair, 1949, (oil on canvas)

In Uglow's last year at Camberwell, he painted a series of cubist-inspired works, in which the subject is broken into geometric shapes.

Claude Rogers, Burning Field, 1959-60, (oil on canvas)

Uglow has repeatedly stated that Rogers was his most influential tutor.

Euan Uglow paintings:

In his painting, Uglow put aside ideas of how things should look and instead focused on close looking, measuring and slowly building an image. Each painting began with a conceptual premise: how to turn an idea related to a three-dimensional subject to a two-dimensional painting. The shape, dimensions and proportions of his canvases were carefully determined and many frames were specifically made to extent the diagonal line of the canvas.

The Musicians, 1953, (oil on canvas)

Looking closer - as I said earlier, fascinated by the brushstrokes

Miss Benge, 1961, oil on canvas)

The patches of pink, lilac, blue and cream paint on the face show Uglow's technique of painting colour observed by looking at individual areas on the model, sometimes through a tunnel made from his hand.