How some of the great 19^th and 20^th-century painters inspired Roger Mavity’s new photography exhibition at Quaglino’s.

Photographer Roger Mavity is unsure how to title a new exhibition of his work. Launching at Quaglino’s this month, it is a compilation of different photographic series. In one, a lone ballet dancer poses with a chair, all shadows and dramatic movement; in another a woman dangles off a crane amid the cavernous space of an old civil engineering studio; and in yet another a real woman hides among the plastic bodies of mannequins.

Certainly, women are a theme, and Roger is the first to anticipate comments about “the male gaze”. But, his inspiration for many of these photographs lies with artists who challenged the social mores of their times – artistic acts of rebellion he finds intriguing.

They are artists such as Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), regarded as the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, impressionist Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Belgian surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967).

“If you go back to the time of some of the paintings I’ve used for inspiration and the social mores that prevailed, people were astounded,” he says. “I mean, Goya was thrown out by the Spanish Inquisition.

“Manet painted his picnic on the grass for a big salon exhibition in Paris, but the jury refused it and there was a great scandal. You couldn’t have a naked woman having a picnic with clothed men; it raised all sorts of deep dark inner anxieties. He and his friends set up the Salon des Refusés, basically ‘the rejects show’, which in fact became much more famous than the exhibition he was turned down for. It was the next generation of paintings.”

Francisco de Goya: Spanish court painter and the inspiration for “Chair with Seated Nude”

“He did this painting called The clothed maja (La maja vestida) – Maja is a Spanish noblewoman. It’s of a woman, probably about 30ish, she’s clothed, but stretched out on a chaise longue looking at the viewer in quite a blatant, available way. He also painted exactly the same scene – identical woman, identical pose – in a sister picture called The nude maja (La maja desnuda) where she was naked.

“They’re very striking paintings and now Goya’s recognised as an absolute master, but at the time he was dethroned as painter to the Royal Court. In 1803 you didn’t do pictures of naked women, unless it was a Roman or Greek myth. This was a real person, which was shocking. Secondly, she was a posh real person, so that made it doubly shocking, because it transgressed barriers of class as well as sex.

“Thirdly, the fact that you could see her in one picture clothed and the other naked was somehow much more erotic than just seeing her naked, because it reminded you she had a public and a private life. I thought the idea of seeing the same woman naked and clothed in a modern way photographically would be interesting. But in one image, not two.”

René Magritte: 20^th century surrealist painter, who inspired 'Magritte's Mirror'

“Magritte painted mostly in the 1930s and 40s, and he did a very famous picture called Reproduction prohibited (Reproduction interdite, 1937) of his friend, the art collector Edward James staring into a mirror. In real life you’d see a reflection of his front, but in the painting you see his back repeated. I was prompted to link that idea with the Goya idea.

“In my photograph, 'Magritte's Mirror', the clothed woman is seeing her reflection naked. It’s a very beautiful old mirror and the silvering is slightly decayed, it’s gradually chipping off so it has that antique quality about it.

“She’s also very beautiful, but in an austere way. She’s got very little make-up on and her hair is rather severe. I wanted a real person – she’s not some page three pin-up. She’s staring at herself in the mirror and imagining herself as a naked person. We’re all aware of ourselves as sexual beings and I have tried to bring that to the surface with a timeless quality.”

Édouard Manet: Nineteenth century painter and impressionist, who inspired Mavity’s 'Leaving the Office'

“The French impressionist Manet did a painting in 1863 called Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Lunch on the grass). Set in a wood, the painting shows three people having a picnic – two men and a woman. The two men are chatting to one another and ignoring the woman, who’s looking towards you, the viewer.

“The men are wearing dandified clothes, but the woman is naked. It’s a beautifully composed painting, but there’s something very odd about it. Firstly they’re clothed and she isn’t and secondly, nobody’s paying any attention to that fact.

“I wanted to create a modern version and was originally going to re-create the scene. Then I decided a more original way to approach it would be to look at the basic idea and re-invent it. I thought today the archetypal place where nobody pays any attention to anybody, particularly if you live in London, is when commuting.

“In 'Leaving the Office', the people on their way home are paying absolutely no attention to their naked counterpart. I wanted the image to be elegant as well as startling, and eventually I found this lift at the end of a corridor in the Royal Institute of British Architects Building in Portland Place. It had a lovely old-fashioned clock and marble walls, which I thought were rather beautiful.”

Further information:

Roger Mavity’s photography exhibition runs at Quaglino’s until 30 November.

Find out more about Quaglino's here and book a table here.