Influence and Admiration

These Artists have been important to me or in some way their work has influenced me. This is not a complete list and I feel sure that I could add to it and that with time the list would change.

At one time I would have listed the Impressionists and the like of Raphael, Rubens and Rembrandt but I note that I do not rush to look at their work so quickly now.

I have always hated the work of wispy Frenchmen such as Fragonard and Francois Boucher but I hold the work of Salvador Dali in a special place of loathing.

Images

Sir William Nicholson 1872 – 1949

Nicholson was a painter and printmaker. He produced his alphabetical series in the late 1890s. I love the bold simplicity of image, reduced colour palate and the simple almost Pop Art line.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1703&page=1


Hilla Becher and Bernd Becher 1913 - 2007

As with the work of Blossfeldt – the Bechers took photographs thematically and in series. Water Towers, Blast Furnaces and other industrial sites were their subjects. Each subject is a beautiful photograph but for me the sum total is much greater.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher
http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/bernd_and_hilla_becher_01.html

Albrecht Durer 1471- 1528

I am a draughtsman but when I see the work of Albrecht Durer or Hans Holbein I wince at my lack of skill.
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/d/durer/index.html


Karl Blossfeldt 1865 - 1932

For me not just a great photographer but like me he was interested in photographing in series. He specialised in photographing plant elements – seeds, stems, pods and so on.
http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/texte/blossfeldt_text.html
http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/karl_blossfeldt_01.html

Edward Ardizzone 1900 – 1979

Edward Ardizzone was the illustrator of my childhood. I remember Struwwelpeter and Wind in the Willows I remember illustrators such as Beatrix Potter, Edmund Dulac, Gustav Dore, Arthur Rackham, Kate Greenaway, Eric Searle, Heath Robinson, Rowland Emmett but most of all Edward Ardizzone.

http://www.chrisbeetles.com/pictures/artists/Ardizzone_Edward/Ardizzone_Edward.htm

Patrick Caulfield 1936 – 2005

I became interested in the work of Caulfield shortly after leaving school. As a child of the 60s I had grown up with the period of Pop Art and Pop Music. Here was something more detached – Still simple and bold but more serious - Less jocular. When I first became aware of his work in the early 1970’s I had no Idea I would meet him.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=873&page=1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/oct/03/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries

Peter Blake b. 1932

London in the 1960s. Wow! Swinging London. I bought my copy of Babe Rainbow for £1 in 1967 in Carnaby Street. Babe Rainbow was the invention of Peter Blake a mythical wrestler. She was printed on tin by Dodo Designs. I also bought a Victorian Policemen's cape in Carnaby Street and wore it all that winter.

Edward Bawden 1903 – 1989

Kyffin Williams introduced me to the work of Edward Bawden in the mid 1960’s. In 1967 I went to Bawden’s studio in Suffolk and took tea and talked with him. I then purchased a lino cut of St Paul’s Cathedral which I still own.
http://www.cecilhigginsartgallery.org/bawden/eb_exhibitions.htm

Kyffin Williams RA 1918 - 2006

Kyffin was my art teacher at school – a wonderful kind, generous man and an important artist in his own right. He taught me about seeing and recording and artistic judgement. I was also taught by Anthony Green RA and Andrew Dear (who has proved difficult to find on Google.) Kyffin Williams left me with an important grounding, interest in the making of art and of art history. His own style of image making however has not influenced mine. He made moody images in oils, drawing and in printmaking. Most of his work was made in Anglesea and he was most at home painting bleak Welsh mountainsides in all weathers.

http://www.kyffinwilliams.info/

Richard Hamilton b. 1922
London in the 1950s was a cold grey place. Richard Hamilton originated Pop Art - but to me he was a neighbour. While Dominie, the daughter of RB Kitaj used to take me to school.

Further Influences

Andre Kertesz 1894-1985


OK so it was hard to chose from Edward Weston, Anselm Adams or a host of other fine photographers using black and white... but this photo tells you about Kertesz and about me. It is called Chez Mondrian – so there is another influence and another connection.
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa198.htm

Paul Catherall
A young London Printmaker whose work I first saw at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. I know very little about him but I just admire the simplicity of his work.

http://www.paulcatherall.com/

Other artists who have influenced me or whose work I greatly admire include:
Paula Rego
http://www.iniva.org/dare/themes/play/rego.html
Sir Hugh Casson
http://www.rwa.org.uk/dec/casson.htm
Euan Uglow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euan_Uglow

As well as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Bill Viola, Banksy, Stubbs, Alfred Wallis, Piero della Francesca, Canaletto and Pieter Bruegel.
Painters from the Netherlands such as Johannes Vermeer, Van Eyck and Van de Velde.

The drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Francisco de Goya, Hans Holbein, Peter Paul Rubens and Henry Moore

Illustrators and draughtsman: David Gentleman and Thomas Bewick.

Photographers: Anselm Adams, Henri Cartier Breton, Alfred Steiglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, Andre Kertesz, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Robert Maplethorpe and Man Ray.