Bea Maddock's '48 Package’

Jacqueline Doughty, former Potter Curatorial Manager, delves into the making of Bea Maddock’s 48 Package. Throughout the 1960s and 70s Maddock had established a reputation primarily as a printmaker. This important work, completed after an inspiring visit to a Jasper Johns exhibition in New York in the late 1970s, signalled a return to painting for the artist.

Maddock experiments with a variety of techniques on this large-scale canvas, including drawing, stencilling, collage and painting with wax. As Jacqueline says, “There is very abstract, metaphysical thinking behind the work, but also a really hands-on, physical love of the act of making art”