Marcel Duchamp is art students’ favourite

The Art Newspaper
By Joanne Allen | Posted May 30, 2006

Marcel Duchamp has emerged as the most influential artist in the UK. The French conceptualist who famously placed a urinal in a New York gallery in 1917 and declared “this is art”, has come top of our survey of students from 11 of the leading art schools in the UK. We spoke to over 320 students and asked them which three artists, living or dead, had inspired them most and have had the greatest influence on their work. Using their responses we compiled a ranking of the artists who have had the most impact on the next generation of British practitioners (right). Duchamp is followed by other 20th-century giants Picasso, Bacon, and Matisse.

The British painter Lucian Freud, 83, who comes fifth, is the highest ranking living artist. The only other living artists to make it into the top ten are Tracey Emin, 42, in joint eighth place with Salvador Dalí (her contemporary, Damien Hirst, comes in at number 19), and Bruce Nauman, 64, at number nine, whose work is currently on show at Tate Liverpool (until 28 August).

The students we spoke to nominated hundreds of artists, representing a highly diverse range of influences. The exceptions were students in Scotland (Edinburgh and Glasgow) many of whom nominated Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Jack Vettriano, which accounts for both artists’ high ranking in our survey. Similarly, Paula Rego was particularly popular at the Slade School of Art, where she began her painting career.

To calculate our list, five points were given to each student’s first choice, while artists named second and third were given three points each.

Of all the artists who make this list, 60% are contemporary and only 6% are old masters. The highest ranked old master is Caravaggio, whose work was the subject of a show at the National Gallery in 2005. This was the best attended old master exhibition in the UK last year. A major exhibition of the work of the American artist Philip Guston at the Royal Academy in 2004 could also help explain his high ranking at number six.

Of all the artists mentioned in our survey, 40% are painters, while just 15% are conceptual or installation artists. Overall, the survey is dominated by European and British artists (66%), with American artists accounting for 24%.

Most of the artists who make this list are men (78%). Of the students who voted for women artists (Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo, Jenny Saville, among others), 81% were themselves women suggesting that their votes were only partly determined by artistic influence. In fact, many of the students we spoke to indicated that they are as influenced by the personalities of the artists they nominated as the work itself. As Duchamp said, “I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists.”

What the students say:

Duchamp shows that art is fun.
—Witte Wartena (29) Edinburgh

Marcel Duchamp because his style is absence. He did his best to eliminate the appearance of his hand (his style) thus giving his work an even more distinct signature.
—Carlos David Garcia (26) Royal College of Art

Tracey Emin because she doesn’t care what people say about her; she’s a legend and completely changed my idea of what art can be.
—Hannah Perry (21) Goldsmiths

Bacon because he gave us a deeper insight into the psyche through painting.
—Paul Savage (29) Royal College of Art

Guston was very successful with his abstract paintings in the 1960s. Then he changed abstract to figurative painting, regardless of style, fame, critics, income. The art scene didn’t appreciate his cartoonish figurative paintings but he kept working on them.
—Jedsada Tangtrakulwong (34) Slade

The ambivalence of Warhol encourages me that nothing is impossible to realise.
—Natsuri Uruma, Slade

Picasso has gone through and explored many aspects of painting and sculpture; a very brave thing to do, and I respect that.
—Lucio Foglia (18), Edinburgh

Picasso for changing standards. Emin for making art personal. Saville for painting when everyone else is doing installations.
—Emma Cummins (20) Newcastle

Bacon as an untrained outsider redefined figurative painting, synthesised expressionism and surrealism, “revamped” Cézanne’s ideology and reinvented an art of the sublime, drew on sources such as psychology, politics, people and places and was an all round cool painter.
—Thomas Yeomans (19) Slade

I love Guston’s ability to tell a good story. Bacon’s paintings have always stirred something up inside of me and that’s got to be good.
—Carla Busuttil (23), Royal Academy Schools

Space encounter, perception, looking and being looked at, “real” time/space. Bruce Nauman has addressed all these issues, and more, and taken them further, pushing the viewer to new lengths by doing so while also excelling in the formal aspects of the work.
—Laura McLardy (21), Goldsmiths

“Lucian Freud... has the ability to communicate his feelings towards the medium and his relationship with the subject matter.”
—Sikele la Ouen (21) Chelsea College


Breakdown by numbers:

Period
contemporary 60%
20th-century 30%
old master 6%
19th-century 4%

Nationality
European 34%
British 32%
American 24%
rest of the world 10%
Medium
painting 40%
other 16%
installation 15%
sculpture 12%
photography 7%
mixed media 6%
video 2%
architecture 2%
Gender
male 78%
female 21%
male/female partnerships 1%

Who we asked:
London
Camberwell College of Arts
Central St Martins College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Art and Design
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Royal Academy Schools
Royal College of Art
Slade School of Fine Art
Rest of UK
Edinburgh College of Art
Glasgow School of Art
University of Newcastle School of Fine Art
Winchester School of Art