Mao in Piccadilly Circus
Signed Erró and dated 1980 on verso. Canvas 100 x 80 cm.
Fernand Hazan, "Erró 1974-1986 Catalogue Général", compare with cat no 477 "Mao in Oslo" p. 81.
Erró, pseudonym for Gudmundur Gudmundsson, was born in 1932 in Olafsvik, Iceland. At the age of ten, he was fascinated by the works of art in a catalog from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since then, painting has been his passion. As a 19-year-old, he was accepted at the Academy of Fine Arts in Reykjavik and then continued with art studies in Oslo. Erró made numerous trips around Europe during the 1950s and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence in 1954 and in 1955 he was accepted to the School of Byzantine Mosaics in Ravenna. It was at this time that he began to exhibit his paintings, especially in Paris where he moved in 1958. During the 1960s, Erró met the museum man Pontus Hultén who encouraged him. Erró's style is significant, and he mixes styles and imagery. Some of the works of art from his youth bear traces of Roberto Matta's space-like creatures, other motifs he draws from cartoons and popular culture and from politics.