ELIZABETH TOOTH HAS BEEN PAINTING, EXHIBITING AND FULFILLING COMMISSIONS FOR OVER TWO DECADES. THE FOLLOWING ARE JUST A SAMPLE OF HER MANY AND VARIED WORKS.
"Allow me to introduce the Hans Holbein of our generation... She is dialoguing with ALL the Old Masters. Her emphasis is on the realistic portrait, just as Holbein's emphasis was during the Renaissance... Tooth's portraits correspond, in terms of updating the structural iconotype of the portrait study, precisely to what Holbein was doing in the Renaissance. If Holbein was alive today, these are the people he would be painting."
John David Ebert
"Derby Museum and Art Gallery is home to the world’s largest collection of paintings by the Enlightenment Artist, Joseph Wright of Derby. In 2010 the Art Gallery paid Elizabeth Tooth the ultimate - indeed unique - compliment of interleaving the portraits of her Concilium Plebis with those of Joseph Wright in the Wright Gallery itself.
The juxtaposition of her work with Wright’s highlighted both her vividly imaginative scene-setting and dressing of a diverse range of contemporary ‘ordinary’ people, and her exquisite skill in bringing their emotions and the tactile textures of their skin, their clothes, the walls, floors and furnishings to life.
There is something about great works of art which will always survive changes of fashion. Joseph Wright’s treasured portraits of Enlightenment worthies were created a quarter of a millennium ago; in another quarter of a millennium Elizabeth Tooth’s portraits will be treasured both for their intrinsic beauty and for the depth of insight they give into the lives of ordinary people of our time"
Emeritus Professor Jonathan Powers
EXTRAORDINARY PORTRAITS OF ORDINARY PEOPLE: Private view of the exhibition where Tooth went head-to-head with Joseph Wright, featuring dance performance by Trinity Warriors - who also appear in some of the paintings.