Keith Coventry is best known for his series of Estate Paintings. At first sight Robin Hood Estate resembles the abstract art of early 20th century Russian painters such as Malevich and Rodchenko. But these geometric patterns are taken from the simplified aerial-view plans of housing estates. Coventry has reduced the building’s layout to a few cool rectangles. The Estate Paintings draw a parallel between the modernist impulse towards ‘pure form’ and the failure of post-war planning’s utopian ambitions. The series began in 1991 and since then Coventry has painted over a hundred different configurations.
KEITH COVENTRY (British, 1958)
oil on canvas
82 x 72 cm
Acquired in 2003
