Andrew Lloyd Webber commissions Maria Kreyn
On permanent view from September 2021
Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London
CLICK HERE TO VIEW PRESS RELEASE
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS DROPBOX FOLDER OF HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES
Including install shots as well as behind-the-scenes studio images
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THUMBNAIL CHECKLIST OF WORKS ON VIEW
For a monumental contemporary art commission tied to his £60M restoration of the West End’s iconic Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Andrew Lloyd Webber enlisted the Brooklyn-based contemporary artist Maria Kreyn to create eight paintings, up to 110” in height, to be on permanent view in the theatre’s innovatively open-to-the-public space. The stunning Greek Revival building sits on the world’s oldest theatre site in continuous use, spanning 400 years and four architectural iterations. It is also the location where Lloyd Webber saw his first-ever musical, My Fair Lady, at the age of seven.
Kreyn, a self-taught painter whose background includes having studied Math and Philosophy at the University of Chicago, approaches her subject matter through a complex, interdisciplinary lens. The paintings are psych-thriller interpretations of Shakespeare plays, dramatically depicting Shakespearean allegories through a contemporary lens. Intensive academic research went into each piece, in consultation with leading Shakespeare scholar Trevor Nunn (who is perhaps the only living person to have directed professional productions of all 39 Shakespeare plays). Each of the eight paintings does not depict any particular moment of the play it is titled for, but is rather an encapsulation of “the emotional thrust of the play” as the artist sees it.
Learn more in the above-linked press release.
A preview of works on view, as well as behind-the-scenes studio shots, is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files.
