Detail

‘I never felt better’ ? the last words of American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer Douglas Fairbanks Sr. In 1966, almost 30 years after Fairbanks’ death, English pop art artist Nicholas Monro made a three dimensional fiberglass portrait of the film star. The representation is noteworthy for the subject’s unusual posture ? he sits cross-legged. The artist used as his model a photograph of Fairbanks as Cassius Lee in the 1916 silent film, "American Aristocracy". Lee is also posed sitting in a suit. Fairbanks, with his distinctive moustache, smiles at us charmingly. With this work in particular pop art artist Nicholas Monro plays with the proverbial film industry superficiality. In the 1920s Fairbanks made women’s hearts beat faster with his daredevil roles as Robin Hood, Zorro or Don Juan. In this portrait the artist has captured the actor who was always in a good mood at a special moment and immortalized Douglas Fairbanks Sr. with his smile frozen in place. Here, as in all his fiberglass sculptures, Monro rejects a hyperreal, too lifelike reproduction of his model. The often life-sized people or animals are stylized by the artist with an eye to their most important characteristics and afterwards painted in a reduced range of colors.