INTRODUCTION

“As a boy I remember feeling a huge mysterious appreciation upon seeing a fully uniformed cook for the first time. The cook appeared dignified and superior like a king or a magician compared to the banal figures around him. The white costume seemed to glow amongst the drab members of the room, and there was a sense of ceremony and importance to his gait. The first cook, whom I remember as rakish and proud, was holding a cleaver and a silver tray, commanding attention.”

I began painting the series I call the ‘Cooks’ in 1991 and have continued to add to it since that time. Since childhood I have been fascinated with the spirit of cookery and in particular the chef; the figure that is so often dressed in white and has a tall hat and checkered trousers. I have always loved the costume of the cook—it seems magical and theatrical, and suggests at times the robes of a priest. I have been intrigued by what the cook does as a creative individual and am aware of how often the cook creates more vastly than any other figure in the arts.

I am still filled with tremendous awe when I glimpse a chef, and grow slightly wobbly at the knees. I think cooks serve and that they are almost like medicine men. They can be manic in the kitchen; overworked and pressured, producing wonderful food but suffering to do it. There is a discrepancy between the nirvana they bring forth in the dining room and the tense world in the kitchen-- there seem to be two worlds each masking the other. My paintings have been an attempt to speak of this world which is to some degree my evoked fantasy of a world I do not know in its depths, but rather guess at.”

THE TENNIS PLAYERS COLLECTION

ʻThe series of Tennis Players stem from my childhood as Tennis was one of the few sports I was able to play or understand.

The first tennis player I ever painted was in fact a portrait of my brother Inigo. He wore a very particular hat which my aunt had purchased for him in Venice. It was a straw hat of a bright yellow and had been blown into a canal and had gotten thoroughly wet. He had been forced to dry it on his finger as he walked home. It had acquired a rather unique shape due to it’s reformation upon his finger. He wore the hat for our tennis lessons. It was a little oriental in feeling.

Tennis is a game of the court with fixed boundaries played mostly between two people. A little like marriage when it has gone wrong or like boxing, it is about opposition and victory, keeping a cool head and fighting it out. Both light-hearted and cruel depending upon one’s outlook. It inevitably reveals the duality of victor and loser.

The tennis players also have unusual hats and costumes which derive from the fanciful and elevated social status of the game.

Another aspect of the series is the racquet which often seems to suggest a hand mirror. This suggestion initiates an alteration of the narrative. The racquet held up as a mirror used to gaze into by the player or to reflect the viewer. A place of introspection and contemplation which is part of the traditional role of painting.

The humour of these paintings is in the delight of the human condition when at a game of Tennis. Though there is opposition (as in war) the opposition is so much more about revealing technique, mastery and spectacular gamesmanship. The players themselves become entranced with the wonder of the event almost like lovers thrilled with their own sexual sophistication as they fight for dominance.’

— William Balthazar Rose

View the William Balthazar Rose 2023 catalogue.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

William Balthazar Rose was born in 1961 in England. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University. The history of art is visible in his work with noted influences being Goya, Bruegel, and Morandi.

Rose paints landscapes, still life, and symbolic figurative work, but is perhaps best known for his Cook Series. He says of the cooks “The tall white hats are architectural, turning the human figure into something stone-like and eternal. The chequered trousers are playful and decorative, and the knives symbolic and threatening, full of innuendo and taboo.” Acclaimed chef Michel Roux Jr is a friend and collector of his work, as well as inspiring many of these paintings.

Rose has lived for several years in the Georgian city of Bath and maintains residences in Tuscany and Umbria, where he is also represented. He has exhibited widely in the United States, England and Europe.