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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Simon Chilvers

The joy of clothes on canvas: how painters celebrate fashion – and inspire it

From L – R: Alice Neel’s Wellesley Girls, 1967© The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy The Estate ofAlice Neel. Prada, Marni and Harry Styles at The Grammy Awards. Peter Doig - Peter Doig, Alpinist, 2022. Pigment on linen.
From L – R: Alice Neel’s Wellesley Girls, 1967© The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy The Estate of Alice Neel. Prada, Marni and Harry Styles at The Grammy Awards. Peter Doig - Peter Doig, Alpinist, 2022. Pigment on linen. Composite: PR/Getty/ The Estate of Alice Neel/ Peter Doig

A new painting by the Scottish painter Peter Doig, titled Alpinist, is set to hang as part of a new show that opens at the Courtauld in London this week. Finished in 2022, it depicts a man wearing a riotously colourful harlequin suit, uncannily similar to the crystal-covered Egonlab jumpsuit worn by Harry Styles on this week’s Grammy awards red carpet. Their resemblance did not go unnoticed by Doig, who posted an image of Styles in the Grammys ensemble on Instagram, complete with a pair of skis and rucksack from the original painting crudely added. A fabulously knowing wink by the artist – and another excellent flip-flop between art and fashion.

From the Lucian Freud show at London’s Garden Museum, to the forthcoming Lynette Yiadom-Boakye exhibition at Guggenheim Bilbao, and the Basquiat x Warhol blockbuster opening at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris in April – when it comes to reimagining the way we get dressed, there’s fashion inspiration in every gallery.

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