'Big Fish Eat Little Fish'
Big Fish Eat Little Fish (triptych)
In spring 2001 Chris Gollon was invited to have a solo show by the award-winning River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames. The Gollon exhibition was one of a series of 3 solo shows that year (the others being John Piper and Stanley Spencer), celebrating artists who worked on or near the Thames. In discussions with the museum beforehand, Gollon was shown the marvellous collection the museum holds of stuffed fish in cases. He decided to make a triptych especially for the show, entitled 'Big Fish Eat Little Fish' (after Breughel's etchings). The left panel shows a burbot, an increasingly rare river fish whose diet includes frogs, hence the look of alarm in the amphibian's eyes. The centre panel holds a pike eating a brown trout, with lampreys below. Gollon has used one of his his close-up techniques to great effect in showing the trout's anguish. In the right panel we see a perch perhaps about to take a fisherman's bait, and below a zander.
With the help of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the museum purchased this triptych from the exhibition. It now hangs in the River & Rowing Museum's permanent collection alongside works by Raoul Dufy and Elizabeth Frink.
Website ©IAP Fine Art 2009, All Images ©Chris Gollon
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