Biography
A Modern British painter working in Minimalism, and Systems, Geometric, and Op Art, through collages, paintings and prints.
Personal Biography
1991-1999
Returned to England. After nearly two decades of working without colour he started what was to become the series of “white paintings” which would be his last works. They were exhibited at the RHoK gallery, Brussels in 1996, at the Retrospective Exhibition of his work at the University of Wales School of Art Gallery, Aberystwyth (1998) and at Flowers East in 1999. In 1997 his wife Eve was diagnosed with cancer and died several months later. Soon after he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Determined to continue working he explored working with specially adapted computer software but was unable to make any progress due to the rapid onset of the disease. He died in February 1999.
1975-1991
In 1977 he moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands. He continued working on charcoal drawings on canvas and paper, and showed mainly in Holland, Belgium, Italy, France, Japan and the USA.
1975
Stimulated by the exhibition “Fundamental Painting / Fundamentele Schilderkunst” mounted at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and was later included in the Fundamental Painting exhibition at the Air Gallery, London, curated by Rini Dippel of the Stedelijk Museum. Solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
1974
Included in the British Painting ’74 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.
1972
Returned to drawing, making large scale charcoal works on canvas, washed and fixed with cellulose acetate. These were based on the grid and cross, often using the resist line of his earlier optical work.
1971
Invited by Malcolm Hughes to join Matrix: a group of artists including Michael Kidner, Jeffrey Steele, John Ernest and Jean Spencer. The Matrix Exhibition opened at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol in 1971 and led to the Sytems Exhibition curated by Nicolas Serota which opened at the Whitechapel gallery in 1972.
1968
Started work on the two colour stripe acrylic paintings, still using moiré and painting on a very large scale. Began to be influenced by US painters such as Noland, Stella, and Newman. The two colour stripe paintings installed at Match Shed, London (1970). One man show with Angela Flowers Gallery, London (1971).
1967
Introduced moiré interferometry to his work, experimenting with line and colour, optical effects and the relationship between art and science. Mediums included resist line drawing and wash over with fast acid dyes. Also worked on Op Art prints at this time. First solo exhibition, University of Sussex.
1966
Commonwealth Scholar (Art and Architecture). Travelled extensively in India.
1964-1966
Started working on the Op Art paintings, exhibiting with Bridget Riley, Michael Kidner, Jeffrey Steele, Frederick Carver and Peter Sedgley at McRoberts & Tunnard Gallery.
1962
Started work at Croydon College of Art, where he was to teach for the next 8 years. Colleagues at Croydon included John Hoyland, Allen Jones, Bridget Riley, Bruce McLean, David Leverett, Barry Fantoni and Michael Simpson.
1961-1962
Married fellow Bath Academy of Art student Eve Laurens. Worked part time painting Lambs Navy Rum figures in a studio with Marc Vaux and Quentin Crisp. Part time teaching. Made the Pop Poster collages as a “homage to Pop Art”.
1960-1961
Won an Italian Government Scholarship in Art to study mosaic in Ravenna. Here he visited the commercial mosaic studios and photographed the building site hoardings which inspired the Pop Art poster collages he went on to make the next year.
1957-1960
Attended Bath Academy of Art aged 24. Enthusiastically embraced the unconventional teaching at Bath at that time. He quickly established a strong disposition towards abstraction as a form of painting. Taught by Adrian Heath, Martin Froy, Anthony Fry, Howard Hodgkin, Malcolm Hughes, Philip Sutton, Gillian Ayres, William Scott, Jack Smith, John Ernest and Robyn Denny. In his last year at Bath he was commissioned to make a 15 x 9 foot abstract mosaic for a college in Wiltshire. The first signs of grids and blocks of colour within a grid construction began to appear in his work at this time.
1954-1957
Worked and also studied part time for A levels and the National Diploma in Design (NDD). Informal attendance at Worcester College of Art where he met Geoffrey Whiting and spent time with him assisting with filling his kiln.
1952-1954
National Service coincided with the Korean War, during which he saw active service as a tank engineer. Travelled in North and South Korea, and Japan.
1950-1952
Influenced by his father’s involvement in agriculture, he attended the Shropshire Institute of Agriculture where he studied for a National Diploma in Agricultural Engineering. The Agricultural College shared a building with Worcester School of Art. Read the Meaning of Art by Sir Herbert Read which helped him to begin to understand the meaning of form, space, movement and line.
1933
Born and grew up in Worcester, UK. Father was involved in farming and horse training and worked for the Ministry of Agriculture. Mother’s family were market gardeners. Went to school in Worcester during the war. No art education at school but did make “desperate attempts” at what he thought was “Modern Art”, influenced by analytical cubist works by Picasso and Gris in art encyclopedias.