The Crown Estate selected Andrew Bick to design the entrance canopy to Princes Arcade, Piccadilly, London W1. The commission marks the entrance to the arcade and forms a new modest scale landmark on Piccadilly. Princes Arcade runs from Piccadilly to Jermyn Street in St James’s, and is located on a listed building designed by E R Robson for the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (1881-1883).
Andrew Bick’s canopy comprises a dynamic asymmetrical grid pattern
constructed from steel and metallic painted aluminium: these matt and mirrored surfaces play with reflected light and colour. The design references the artist’s layered grids in his paintings: here, extending into three dimensions. The layers of coloured glass in orange, green and blue, link back to the building’s original association with watercolour artists.
In ‘For Marlow Moss’ the grid as an enduring motif is combined sympathetically and with gentle playfulness to the nature of the building and the associations of the area with menswear, sartorial elegance and cutting-edge contemporary art. This artwork is about creating new ways that these worlds and traditions might be combined and interpreted as well as paying tribute to an under-known and important British Artist. ”
Andrew Bick, 2017
An editioned pocket handkerchief square has been produced in collaboration with Mayfair-based Drakes Menswear, referencing the grids used and also paying tribute to the under-celebrated British artist Marlow Moss (whose own father was a master clothier).