Learning objectives
■ Learn from the masters
■ Practise traditional oil-painting techniques
In a 1961 survey, the most recognised painting the UK was not the Mona Lisa; not Botticelli's Birth of Venus; and nothing by Monet. It was Vladimir Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl. Framed reproductions of the Russian artist's famous green-faced girl were available to buy at Woolworth's in the 1950s and 1960s. By his death in 2006, Tretchikoff was almost as rich as Picasso. The original painting later sold in 2013 for nearly £1 million.
In the 1970s the high street chain Athena Posters published good quality prints of works by Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha, and masterpieces by Monet, Toulouse Lautrec and the Austrian painter, Gustave Klimt. Athena took the lead in introducing a generation of shoppers to the world of art history.
In the mid-1970s it was hard to miss seeing reproductions of Klimt's most famous painting, , featuring his glorious and instantly recognisable pattern making and use of gold leaf. However, gold does not photograph well and the background of the poster came out as a pale brown. As a Klimt fan, I looked down on the proliferation of merchandising, from fridge magnets to earrings, coffee mugs to notepads, but nothing had prepared me for my first viewing of the real thing. Hanging in the Upper Belvedere Gallery in Vienna, the painting is sublime, and seeing it was a life-changing experience.
