Nicole Farhi was tutored and mentored by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, one of the most important and inventive British sculptors of the twentieth century. Farhi has created an idiosyncratic series comprising twelve busts of famous names from the worlds of art, fashion, stage and screen including Dame Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham Carter; playwright Tom Stoppard; Anna Wintour, editor
of Vogue; and artists Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Cedric Christie and Eduardo Paolozzi.
Farhi has been sculpting for almost 30 years, throughout her career as a fashion designer, and full-time for the past three years.
Nicole Farhi says: “The human face has always greatly interested me. I have a rather good memory for faces, even if in life I have seen them only once or twice as in the case of Freud and Bacon. Most of the time producing a portrait requires a rapport between the artist and the sitter. The true character of the person will come through these repeated sessions. Usually my sitters will come to the studio to be photographed or I will go to them. I will then start building an armature and after a few hours sculpting in clay the structure of the face will appear or not... Once I have the structure the true character will follow sometimes days later, weeks, sometimes months.”