 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(July 2013) |
Geoffrey Key (born 13 May 1941 in Rusholme, Manchester, England) is a British painter and sculptor. A number of public art collections have examples of his work. [1]
Key's mother, Marion, worked as an illustrator, and encouraged him to draw. [2] : 3–4 [3]
Key was educated at the Manchester High School of Art, whose headmaster, Ernest Goodman, established the Salford Art Club. After Goodman's death, its members chose Key as the Honorary President. [4]
In 1958, Key enrolled at the Manchester Regional College of Art. [2] : 11 At the college, Key was tutored by sculptor Ted Roocroft and painter Harry Rutherford.
After gaining the National Diploma of Design and the Diploma of Associateship of Manchester, the latter with distinction, Key took up a postgraduate scholarship in sculpture. His academic awards include the Heywood Medal in Fine Art and the Guthrie Bond Travelling Scholarship. [2]
Key’s early work included an important period of development during which he concentrated on painting and drawing a specific area of the Derbyshire landscape, the Whiteley Nab hill, south of Glossop. Key created hundreds of images of this one landscape. Key later revealed that the purpose of this dedicated period of study was to build upon the firm foundation established by his academic training, whilst divesting himself of the influences he had absorbed in order to arrive at his own personal artistic language. [2] : 13
During this time, Key also worked as an art teacher at Broughton High Secondary School in Salford. Key left this job as his reputation grew and galleries such as Salford Art Gallery, The Rutherston Loan Collection and North West Arts began acquiring his works. [2] : 33
Key was elected to membership of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts in 1968 and was a prize winner in 1971. [2] : 36 During this time, he was also commissioned to produce artworks by three companies in North West England – Mather & Platt, the former Richard Johnson & Nephew company, and the former Wilson’s Brewery. The Richard Johnson & Nephew pictures are now held by the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester. [2] : 38 Of the Manchester Academy Exhibition in 1979, Jane Clifford, writing in The Daily Telegraph commented "Perhaps the artist that stands out most is Geoffrey Key" "His female forms show a self confidence which is compelling". [3]
In the 1980s the French company Société des Caves de Roquefort also commissioned work. [2] : 38 Further successful exhibitions were held in both the United Kingdom and abroad. In 1987, the Manchester Evening News asked Key to write an article on L. S. Lowry, who Key had known well, for a feature marking the centenary of the artist's birth. This article was accompanied by a contemporary drawing of Lowry by Key. [2] : 22
In the early 1990s Key visited Hong Kong to exhibit his work in a gallery at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. [2] : 185 Key has stated that this, his first visit to Asia, was to prove a catalyst in a change in the use of colour in his work. An earlier predominance of muted tones was replaced with a fuller and more vibrant palette, which has remained an enduring aspect of his art. Of the exhibition, Asian Art News said "It is the emotion and pleasure of making art that comes through so clearly in Key's work and makes it sparkle". [3]
Key’s career as an artist now spans five decades and his work and exhibitions have been widely appraised and reviewed. [5] His paintings and sculpture feature in several public art collections in North West England, including Salford and Manchester Art Galleries. [1] His work is also held in private and corporate collections including the National Westminster Bank, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the Chateau de St Ouen and Perrier. Key has represented the UK in invited exhibitions in Europe. [6] Shows have taken place across the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA [7] and his work is exhibited and sold in galleries in the UK, Ireland, the US and Hong Kong. [3] [8] [ better source needed ]
In May 2013 Key's work was exhibited at Messum's Art Gallery in London. [9] Decscribed as one of the most important living painters, prices for Key's work have risen steadily over the last decade. [10]
Key has also published several books. [11] G Key - A Book of Drawings and Interview (1975), Daydreams (1981), Clowns (2001), Geoffrey Key Twentieth Century Drawings (2002), Images (2004), Geoffrey Key Paintings (2008), Birds (2010). Signature Book (2011). [12]
In 2011 Key was filmed for a documentary about his work and life by Andy Pacino, a filmmaker and author from Manchester. It had the working title Saltglaze Pot. [13]
Speaking with the Manchester Evening News in October 2009 Key said of his style and manner of working "If I'm doing a still life. I'll set it up, look at it for an hour or so, put it away and then paint it. I find the mind's great at distilling, at breaking it down into essentials. If I'm looking at it I find myself copying every detail, and that isn't necessary. I couldn't sit in a field painting a landscape because I would just feel I'm copying nature when photography can do a better job. Painting it from memory, recreating in on canvas can do quite another job". [3]
Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire, where he lived and worked for more than 40 years, Salford and its vicinity.
Salford Museum and Art Gallery, in Peel Park, Salford, Greater Manchester, opened to the public in November 1850 as the Royal Museum and Public Library. The gallery and museum are devoted to the history of Salford and Victorian art and architecture.
Pierre Adolphe Valette was a French Impressionist painter. His most acclaimed paintings are urban landscapes of Manchester, now in the collection of Manchester Art Gallery. Today, he is chiefly remembered as L. S. Lowry's tutor.
The Lowry is a theatre and gallery complex at Salford Quays, Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is named after the early 20th-century painter L. S. Lowry, known for his paintings of industrial scenes in North West England. The complex opened on 28 April 2000 and was officially opened on 12 October 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II.
Ray Lowry was an English cartoonist, illustrator and satirist, possessing a highly distinctive style and wit. He contributed to The Guardian, Private Eye, Punch, Tatler and NME, among many other publications. In his later years he lived in Rossendale, Lancashire.
Dame Laura Knight, was an English artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. Knight was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition, who embraced English Impressionism. In her long career, Knight was among the most successful and popular painters in Britain. Her success in the male-dominated British art establishment paved the way for greater status and recognition for women artists.
Callum Innes is a Scottish abstract painter, a former Turner Prize nominee and winner of the Jerwood Painting Prize. He lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Harold Francis Riley DL, DLitt, FRCS (Hon), DFA, ATC, is an English artist. He sold his first painting to the Salford Museum and Art Gallery when he was 11.
Liam Spencer is a British artist.
Ben Johnson is a British painter, known for his series of large, detailed cityscapes.
Zsuzsi Roboz was a London-based Hungarian painter known for her portraiture paintings and paintings of the arts. Her work is in public galleries including the Tate Britain and The National Portrait Gallery.
Portrait of Ann (1957) is a painting by British artist L. S. Lowry (1887–1976). Opinion remains divided as to the identity of the subject, who appears in many of Lowry's works, and her significance for the artist.
Trevor Grimshaw was an English artist whose main subject is the northern industrial town landscape as it used to be.
Harry Rutherford (1903–85) was a British painter who is regarded as one of the most important painters of the "Northern School", a group led by L. S. Lowry which depicted the post-industrial changes around North West England. He was the first visual artist to present a television programme, and later became President of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.
Doris Wong Wai Yin, is a Hong Kong born artist, working with various types of media such as paintings, sculpture, collages, installations, videos and photography. Through her works, she explores her internal conflicts, raising and answering questions about her journey of motherhood, fears, and struggle with self-doubt.
Käthe Fanny Schuftan was a German Jewish artist whose paintings and drawings expressed both human suffering and the aspiration of spirit, in the mid 20th century. Josef Paul Hodin wrote that she "worked in an Expressionist style reminiscent of Käthe Kollwitz' social pathos". An artist at the time of the Weimar culture, she was tortured and imprisoned by the Nazis in the early 1930s, and her work was destroyed. She escaped in 1939, arriving in Manchester, England, not long before the outbreak of World War II; she lived and worked there until her death in 1958.
Simon Carter is an artist and curator who was born in Chelmsford, Essex in 1961.
Emmanuel Levy (1900–1986) was a Manchester painter, teacher and art critic.
Gordon Snee was a British abstract painter who began work in the late 1940s. During his lifetime he rarely exhibited his work. It was only after his death in 2013 that his life's work was revealed. Snee has been described as an "outstanding talent", "one of the 'lost painters' of the post-war period, and "one of the finest post-war abstract painters".
Helen Clapcott is an English painter.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Art research institutes | |
| Other | |
