Not currently on display at the V&A

Family Voices: Figures Looking out to Sea

Oil Painting
1980 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Oil painting on canvas, unglazed, of a man and a boy sitting on a grassy cliff-top, sitting in contemplative positions, staring out to sea. The painting is framed, in a pine frame, within which is a beige hessian fillet, with white painted plywood inside edging.


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleFamily Voices: Figures Looking out to Sea (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Oil on canvas
Brief description
Oil painting by Guy Vaesen, one of seven paintings reproduced in the Next Edition, 1981, of Family Voices, a play by Harold Pinter
Physical description
Oil painting on canvas, unglazed, of a man and a boy sitting on a grassy cliff-top, sitting in contemplative positions, staring out to sea. The painting is framed, in a pine frame, within which is a beige hessian fillet, with white painted plywood inside edging.
Dimensions
  • Approx., canvas only height: 47cm
  • Approx., canvas only width: 38.5cm
  • Including frame height: 66cm
  • Including frame width: 57.5cm
Production typeUnique
Credit line
Given by Harold Pinter, CBE.
Object history
This was painted as one of the seven paintings by Guy Vaesen that were reproduced in the Next Edition of the script of Family Voices by Harold Pinter, published to accompany the BBC Radio 3 broadcast on 22 January 1981, directed by Peter Hall, with Michael Kitchen as Voice 1, Peggy Ashcroft as Voice 1 and Mark Dignam as Voice 3.

Family Voices was subsequently produced as a 'platform performance' at the National Theatre, 13 February 1981, with the same cast, and later presented as one of the 3 short Pinter plays in Other Places, Cottesloe Theatre, October 1982. Other Places comprised A Kind of Alaska, Family Voices and Victoria Station.
Production
This was most probably painted in 1980 since it was first reproduced in 1981 in a printed edition to accompany the radio production broadcast in January 1981.
Subject depicted
Collection
Accession number
S.122-2002

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Record createdFebruary 28, 2002
Record URL
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