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Drawing

1970s (drawn)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Howard Tangye is known for his work as an artist, designer and teacher within the world of fashion. He was Head of Womenswear at Central St Martins in London for sixteen years, retiring in December 2014. During a wide-ranging career he has taught leading designers and artists such as John Galliano, Hussein Chalayalan, Stella McCartney, Zac Posen, Christopher Kane, Richard Nicoll and Julie Verhoeven, amongst others. Tangye himself studied at St. Martin’s School of Art in the 1970s, where he was taught by the influential fashion illustrator Elizabeth Suter, and later completed postgraduate studies at Parsons School of Design in New York where he was taught by the equally influential Barbara Pearlman.

Tangye’s work conveys the debt that contemporary fashion drawing owes to traditional figure and portrait studies. His dynamic and expressive compositions demonstrate the profound ability of drawing to bring form and definition to those thoughts, gestures and moments that occupy the spaces left uncharted by the gaze of the camera lens. Employing a decisive line and bold applications of richly- layered oil pastel, pencil, chalk and other media - these studies from life help to articulate how the process of drawing offers a freedom to examine texture, detail, colour and materiality in a way that photography sometimes cannot. While Tangye's drawings are associated with the fashion world, he stresses that he is not a fashion illustrator; his primary focus is on the body and his works are independent drawings rather than illustrations.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Pencil and watercolour on paper
Brief description
Drawing by Howard Tangye, depicting an unknown model at Central Saint Martins wearing a yellow dress, pencil and watercolour, London, 1970s
Physical description
Drawing, in pencil and watercolour, depicting an unknown female model, sitting, wearing a yellow dress with winged sleeves.
Dimensions
  • Length: 46.5cm
  • Width: 42cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'H. TANGYE' (Signed in ink on obverse)
  • 'H Tangye / St Martins 70s / unknown model' (Inscribed in pencil on reverse)
Credit line
Gift of the artist
Subjects depicted
Summary
Howard Tangye is known for his work as an artist, designer and teacher within the world of fashion. He was Head of Womenswear at Central St Martins in London for sixteen years, retiring in December 2014. During a wide-ranging career he has taught leading designers and artists such as John Galliano, Hussein Chalayalan, Stella McCartney, Zac Posen, Christopher Kane, Richard Nicoll and Julie Verhoeven, amongst others. Tangye himself studied at St. Martin’s School of Art in the 1970s, where he was taught by the influential fashion illustrator Elizabeth Suter, and later completed postgraduate studies at Parsons School of Design in New York where he was taught by the equally influential Barbara Pearlman.

Tangye’s work conveys the debt that contemporary fashion drawing owes to traditional figure and portrait studies. His dynamic and expressive compositions demonstrate the profound ability of drawing to bring form and definition to those thoughts, gestures and moments that occupy the spaces left uncharted by the gaze of the camera lens. Employing a decisive line and bold applications of richly- layered oil pastel, pencil, chalk and other media - these studies from life help to articulate how the process of drawing offers a freedom to examine texture, detail, colour and materiality in a way that photography sometimes cannot. While Tangye's drawings are associated with the fashion world, he stresses that he is not a fashion illustrator; his primary focus is on the body and his works are independent drawings rather than illustrations.
Collection
Accession number
E.111-2014

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Record createdApril 19, 2013
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