* BRUCE MCLEAN (SCOTTISH b. 1944), BIG NIGHT OUT ON ARGYLE STREET

limited edition screenprint on paper, signed and numbered 54/75 unframed overall size 56cm x 75cm Note: McLean studied at Glasgow School of Art (1961?3) and St Martin?s School of Art in London (1963?6) where he was taught by sculptors including Anthony Caro and Phillip King (1934?2021). Rebelling against his training, he rose to prominence in the late 1960s for his interrogation of sculpture?s conventional definitions, materials and display methods. This impulse to break with the establishment and push at boundaries has continued throughout his life?s work. Using humour and satire McLean confronts art world pretentions, the nature of bureaucracy, and institutional politics. He works across a range of media including photography, performance, painting, printmaking, film and ceramics. Having abandoned a conventional studio practice in the late 1960s, McLean worked as a conceptual artist before embarking on an intense period of collaborative performance. Throughout the 1970s, he explored ?pose?, presenting the body as ?live sculpture? in performances that targeted social hierarchy and bourgeois taste. In the 1980s he turned increasingly to painting, winning the John Moores Painting Prize in 1985. McLean has taught at prestigious art schools over the years, retiring as Head of Graduate Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2009. He has exhibited extensively in solo shows and landmark international surveys including one man exhibitions at Tate Gallery in London, Arnolfini, Bristol, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, The Modern Art Gallery in Vienna and Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. His work is held in UK and international public collections including Tate Britain.