6 May - 10 June 2000
35 Heddon Street, London W1
Currin has also spent time looking at old masters and borrows both his palette and the long linear form of his women from Northern Renaissance painters such as Lucas Cranach. The women he paints now are far removed from their bouncy-breasted sisters. Slim and willowy, they all display the same orthodontic smiles, but little overt sexuality. The result is a cross between a medieval Madonna and one of the Stepford wives. It is as if all his women were extras off a Fifties' set of I Love Lucy. These are the good girls; the wives and mothers, the bimbo-blonde girls-next-door of the American middle class. They wear Burberrys and cashmere snoods and beige silk blouses with pussy cat's bows and they smile, smile, smile as if their very lives depended on it.
Independent, The (London), Jun 4, 2000 by Sue Hubbard