Exhibition vaunts Hancock's spoof

Spoof works of art that Tony Hancock created in the 1960 satire The Rebel have gone on display at a real gallery.

The Foundry Gallery in London is presenting the collection as if it were geniune, under the title Anthony Hancock Paintings & Sculpture: A Retrospective Exhibition.

And the tongue-in-cheek "history" that accompanies the display claims Hancock influenced many of his contemporaries with work such as the hideously ugly sculpture Aphrodite at the Watering Hole.

It also refers to such fictitious art movements as "Infantilism" and "Shapeism".

This and other items, such as an incompetent painting of a foot, and an action painting created by hurling paint at a canvas then cycling over it have been recreated for the exhibition, as the originals were lost.

The movie, written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, mocked the pretensions of the art world, and showed Hancock's amateurish attempts being hailed as genius by the Parisian artistic set.

The exhibition runs at the gallery in Great Eastern Street until September 20.

Meanwhile, Comic Heritage will unveil a blue plaque commemorating the entire Hancock's Half Hour team at BBC Broadcasting House on Sunday.

Published: 5 Sep 2002