The Masterpiece, 2001–06

comic book series

Borrowing its title from Emile Zola’s fictitious portrait of the artist Paul Cezanne, The Masterpiece is a satire on the popular myths and clichés surrounding bohemianism and the figure of the artist ‘genius’. The story is a Bildungsroman of sorts, which takes place in an imaginary London avant-garde of the 1960s, as we follow the young artist Nick in pursuit of his ultimate goal: to produce a masterpiece. The drawings are all based on secondary sources, bringing material together from pulp literature, advertising, magazines and popular films. The cheap and mass-produced format of the comic book, with its potential for wide distribution, is in deliberate contrast with the unique masterpiece that its protagonist is obsessed with making. In the final episode, titled The Road to Ruin, Nick finds himself in the 1980s. We follow him as he grapples with the Bucks corporation and the relationship between art and finance becoming more blatant.  

By combining a hard-thinking approach to questions of authorship and the aura of the unique artwork with sexy, historically promiscuous imagery, The Masterpiece lives, somewhat paradoxically, up to its name.

—Tom Morton