2012: Philip Haas - The Four Seasons

20 June 2012 - 16 September 2012 

Dulwich Picture Gallery is excited to present a monumental installation in its grounds to coincide with Andy Warhol: The Portfolios, The Bank of America Collection.

The Four Seasons, a set of four fifteen-foot fibreglass sculptures by American artist and fi lm-maker Philip Haas, will be the first ever public display of all four works and continues the Gallery’s commitment to displaying contemporary sculpture.

In a spectacular transformation that is typical of his work, Philip Haas has created a group of large-scale sculptures, inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s renaissance paintings of the four seasons, comprising Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The colossal size of Haas’s sculpture accentuates the visual puzzle of natural forms –- flowers, ivy, moss, fungi, vegetables, fruit, trees, bark, branches, twigs -– as they are recycled to form four human portraits, each representing an individual season. The result is at once grotesque, earthy, and exuberant.

Philip Haas said: “I started the Four Seasons project wanting to bring Arcimboldo’s sixteenth century nature imagery into the twenty-first century physical world. I can’t think of a better venue than the garden of Dulwich Picture Gallery to inaugurate the tour, where the sculptures will stand in juxtaposition with the old master collection, uncertain whether they should climb back inside the museum -- or flee!”

The Four Seasons was part of Dulwich Picture Gallery's touring exhibition programme:

Desert Botanic Gardens, Phoenix: 26 October 2012 – 28 April 2013

The New York Botanical Garden: 18 May – 30 March 2013

Denver Botanic Gardens: November 2013 – April 2014

Atlanta Botanical Garden: May – October 2014