Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Dorothy C. Weicker in honor and memory of her parents, Beatrice Trostel and Frederick E. Weicker, Yale, Sheffield Scientific School, Class of 1931
Euan Uglow studied at the Camberwell School of Art and the Slade School in the early 1950s and quickly made a reputation for his studies of the nude, with figures posed in irregular attitudes in carefully chosen domestic settings. A meticulous and precise painter, Uglow worked very slowly, expecting his models to stay in position for hours on end and to return regularly over the course of many months, sometimes even years. "It was an endurance test for both of us," recalled one model who patiently sat for him one winter. When Veera, the model for this painting, could not be present, Uglow replaced her with a cube created out of copper rods, signaling at his lifelong preoccupation with the geometry of the human body. A recent gift to the Center, Double Square was one of the last paintings Uglow completed before his death from cancer in 2000. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020