The Liverpool Cityscape

[PhilipG]

Thank you, Linda.
Here's another.

[Kev]

National Museums Liverpool has commissioned Ben Johnson to create a highly detailed portrait of Liverpool entitled, The Liverpool Cityscape. Work-in-progress images can be seen here with more details on main website

[AK1]

Brilliant pics, thanks Kev!

[Kev]

They are fab aren't they? Can't wait to see more from National Museums and Galleries.

[Kev]

1st November 2007

Open up the large image, one of my fave Liverpool views.

[Waterways]

Thank you Chippie and Ged.

Here's a tower for Ged.

Mill View. System built. They took the gas out after the Ronan Point explosion in London in 1968. I like it. It is a nice block.

[ChrisGeorge]

1st November 2007

Open up the large image, one of my fave Liverpool views.

Brilliant, Kev!

Chris

[Kev]

IT IS the painting every Liverpudlian and lover of Liverpool will want to see, a massive view of the city on a canvas 16ft wide and 8ft tall.

With much of the work complete, artist Ben Johnson opened his studio in the Hammersmith area of London for a first public view of the painting.

It is a breathtaking piece with every building over five square miles recreated in meticulous detail together with a horizon stretching to the hills beyond.

The painting even captured the praise of studio visitor Anne Robinson of The Weakest Link. “It is quite magical,” beamed the Liverpool-born presenter in a change from her television image, hardly able to take her eyes from the canvas.

The work – titled The Liverpool Cityscape – is a £500,000 commission from National Museums Liverpool with financial help from a number of sponsors.

Among those was Brookside creator Phil Redmond and deputy chairman of the Culture Company who personally donated what he describes as “a substantial amount”.

He was delighted with the work, which he said would be one of the legacies of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture. “It is a very special piece,” he said.

“It also reveals Liverpool’s global position with so many buildings like the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine involved with events outside of the city.”

For Llandudno-born artist Ben Johnson, the painting has taken three years of his life.
Ben Johnson with his Liverpool painting

“I have done nothing else except this painting.

“I have also had six assistants with me so you could say this painting has taken 18 years to complete.”

He had already painted similar but smaller panoramic paintings of Jerusalem, Zurich and Hong Kong. The Liverpool cityscape is his largest commission yet, and he accepted it only on the condition that it would be given to the people of Liverpool.

After going on display in the Walker Art Gallery next year, it will finally be on permanent exhibition in the new Museum of Liverpool.

Johnson, a dapper 61-year-old, has had his Hammersmith studio for the last ten years. He converted it from a derelict building and fellow artist Sir Peter Blake – another visitor – created his own studio at the same time next door.

The studio itself is amazingly neat and tidy: “I like to be organised,” he says.

Although he knew Liverpool from childhood days in North Wales and later studying in Chester, he did visit Liverpool again with his wife and assistant, Sheila, before accepting the commission.

“I wanted to know if we really wanted to spend three years of our lives working on this city,” he explains. The answer was a resounding yes.

To create his special panoramic view, he took photographs of every building, a process which continues. Drawings were then made and stencils created to spray the acrylic paint on to the canvas. It is very time-consuming work.

The completed painting will be on display at the Walker from May 24 to November 2.

philkey

[Howie]

The wider view: Liverpool City as you've never seen it before in the most detailed landscape picture ever painted
Last updated at 00:30am on 13th January 2008

This is the most detailed landscape picture ever painted - and it has taken artist Ben Johnson and his team 24,000 hours of painstaking work over three years so far, with another eight weeks to go until it is finished.

Called Liverpool Cityscape 2008, it measures 16ft by 8ft, takes in five square miles of the city from a vantage point 1,500ft above the River Mersey, and is entirely spray-painted.

To make sure the landscape is as accurate as possible, Ben took 3,000 reference photographs and asked for input from architects, historians and local people.


The landscape picture will be finished in front of a live audience in the city's Walker Art Gallery

He then reconstructed the buildings on a computer.

The details are downloaded on to a memory stick, which is placed in a special machine that cuts the stencils for each part of a building out of huge sheets of plastic.

The cutting process takes anything from an hour to 48 hours depending on the size and intricacy of the building.


The painting measures 16ft by 8ft and takes in five square miles of Liverpool city
from a vantage point 1,500ft above the River Mersey

It will take 14 days to cut the stencils for the River Mersey. Each is then held in exactly the right position before being sprayed over.

Ben, 60, says: "I work with a team of six highly talented studio assistants. I couldn't do it without them."

The team are using 20,000 plastic stencils, a different one for every part of each building, to ensure ultimate accuracy.


It is the most detailed landscape picture ever painted and is to be completed in eight weeks time

Ben, whose studio is in Hammersmith, West London, will take up residency at the city's Walker Art Gallery to finish the Liverpool Cityscape in front of a live audience from January 28 to March 7.

"My favourite part will be when the Liverpudlians themselves can see it," he says.

"I deliberately left out people from the painting because I want them to embrace it."


Liverpool Cityscape 2008 has taken artist Ben Johnson and his team 24,000 hours of
painstaking work over three years so far

The project, commissioned by National Museums Liverpool to mark the city's year as the European Capital of Culture, will be displayed at the Walker Art Gallery from May 24 to November 2 with the rest of Johnson's world cities series, which include panoramas of Jerusalem, Zurich and Hong Kong.

It will be the first time the works are exhibited together.

Source: The Mail on Sunday

[Steven]

What a fanstatic undertaking. I can't wait to see the finished work.

[Kev]

I think this project is awesome, fantastic

[Kev]

Liverpool Cityscape Thread

For photographs, could I encourage snappers to get out record Liverpool's city scape!

[John(Zappa)]

Now thats what I call art.
Brilliant work.

[drone_pilot]

The wider view: Liverpool City as you've never seen it
before in the most detailed landscape picture ever painted.

This is the most detailed landscape picture ever painted - and it has taken
artist Ben Johnson and his team 24,000 hours of painstaking work over
three years so far, with another eight weeks to go until it is finished.

Called Liverpool Cityscape 2008, it measures 16ft by 8ft, takes in five
square miles of the city from a vantage point 1,500ft above the River
Mersey, and is entirely spray-painted.

To make sure the landscape is as accurate as possible, Ben took 3,000
reference photographs and asked for input from architects, historians and
local people.

Daily Mail Read More

[corky100]

Now that's dedication. I'd love to see that when its exhibited!