Some paintings of London

Di Livey

04/11/74. (Sala 028)

A series of large paintings on printed canvas.

Based on an informal language, Livey’s work is based on the constant repetition of an element, which in most cases is a rectangle. Sometimes she divides the surface of the canvas into a series of rectangles, equal to each other, separated by a field of color.

Other times the rectangles are superimposed on each other, at a decreasing rhythm, until the last one is completely free.

Other times, scarce in this exhibition, he made the same work from lines.

La Sala Vinçon, November 1974

Fernando Amat asked me if I would like to have an exhibition in his gallery in Barcelona. Of course I agreed at once. I knew Fernando through my friendship with Charles and Jane Dillon, who had worked in Barcelona in the early seventies as furniture designers. Bigas Luna was also a friend of Charles and Jane; he was a designer who later became a highly acclaimed Spanish film maker. He encouraged Fernando to offer me an exhibition in his gallery in Barcelona.

Fernando’s shop was in the Paseo de Gracia, an elegant street full of Gaudi buildings. His shop sold avant garde furniture and household goods – this was rare at this time in Spain as the country was just emerging from decades of Franco’s repressive regime.

The gallery space was at the back of the shop and had been a Spanish painter’s studio in the early twentieth century. It made an excellent space in which to exhibit. We agreed that I could show my work in November 1974. The show’s title ‘Algunas Pinturas de Londres’ was meant to mean ‘Some Paintings from London’, but the title actually meant ‘Some Paintings of London’, which would have been very disappointing to anyone wanting to see figurative renditions of London. 

The work I selected for the exhibition was made between 1972 and 1974. I chose some of the large printed canvases from 1972, newer work which combined latex and printed canvas and a latex piece called Pinched Grid.

Di Livey