John Bratby

Last updated • 4 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

John Bratby
Born(1928-07-19)19 July 1928
Wimbledon, London, England
Died20 July 1992(1992-07-20) (aged 64)
Hastings, Sussex, England
Alma mater
Known forPainting
Movement Kitchen sink realism
Spouse(s) Jean Cooke (1954–1977)
Patricia Rosenburg (until his death)
ChildrenDavid Bratby b. 1955

John Randall Bratby RA (19 July 1928 – 20 July 1992) was an English painter who founded the kitchen sink realism style of art that was influential in the late 1950s. He made portraits of his family and celebrities. His works were seen in television and film. Bratby was also a writer.

Contents

Early life and education

John Bratby was born on 19 July 1928 [1] in Wimbledon, south-west London. [2] Between 1949 and 1950, he studied art at Kingston College of Art. He then began attending the Royal College of Art, completing his studies in 1954. He painted landscapes, still lifes, portraits and figure compositions, and had his first solo exhibition that year at London's Beaux Arts Gallery. [3]

He was given the opportunity to travel to Italy when he was awarded a bursary during his college years. However, the experience left him uninspired artistically, and uninterested in travelling. [4]

Career

Artist

Bratby is considered the founder of kitchen sink realism, a movement in which artists use everyday objects as their subjects, such as rubbish bins and beer bottles. Paintings in this style are often thickly-laden. It began in the early 1950s and has been considered an aspect of John Osborne's "Angry Young Men" movement. [nb 1] Artists Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith were also active in the movement's development. Bratby often painted with bright colours, capturing his middle-class family's daily lives. The faces of his subjects often appeared desperate and unsightly. [3] [4] Bratby painted several kitchen subjects, often turning practical utensils such as sieves and spoons into semi-abstract shapes. He also painted bathrooms, and made three paintings of toilets.[ citation needed ] Initially there was some critical interest, but English critics later disregarded the movement's importance. [1]

In 1958, Bratby created works for the fictional artist Gulley Jimson in the Alec Guinness film The Horse's Mouth . [1] [3] A portion of Bratby's painting Four Lambrettas and Three Portraits of Janet Churchman (1958) is featured on the cover of Mark Knopfler's 2007 album Kill to Get Crimson . [6]

As he matured, Bratby's works became "lighter and more exuberant". He made the mural Golgotha for Lancaster's St Martin's Chapel in 1965. [3] During his career, Bratby promoted himself on television and the radio and was one of his generation's best-known artists. He mingled with celebrities to earn portrait commissions [3] in the late 1960s. By the 1970s he had painted a series of portraits including of Billie Whitelaw. [4]

Bratby was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1971. [7]

In the 1980s he travelled and made paintings of the cities he visited. He made intimately-posed portraits of his wife and self-portraits. He continued to paint with bright colours, but had developed "an economy of line". [4] His paintings are shown in the 1984 television mini-series adaptation of Judith Krantz's novel Mistral's Daughter, about an artist. [1] [3]

Bratby's work fell out of favour with the emergence of Pop art, but his paintings have increased in value and critical support over recent years. Paul McCartney has been a collector of his works. McCartney had given Bratby two hours in Bratby's studio in 1967. Three portraits resulted from the sitting. [8] [9] [10]

Writer

Bratby wrote the novels Breakdown (1960), [3] [11] Breakfast and Elevenses (published by Hutchinson; 1961), and Brake Pedal Down (1962). [12] He also wrote a book about Stanley Spencer in 1970. [3]

Personal life and domestic abuse

Bratby was married first to the painter Jean Cooke. [3] Afraid that Cooke might leave him, he locked her in his room once during their courtship. After their marriage in 1953, he was upset by the recognition her paintings achieved. He often painted over [13] [14] or "slashed" her works and restricted her painting time to three morning hours. [15]

Bratby and Cooke's relationship experienced cycles of violence throughout their marriage. Jean left their home in fear, but would return based on the advice of their mentor and family friend, Carel Weight. She began signing her works with her maiden name at Bratby's insistence. [nb 2] The couple had one daughter, Wendy, and three sons, Dayan, David and Jason. Their relationship was over by the 1970s, and they divorced in 1977. [13] [14] [15]

Bratby died on 20 July 1992 in Hastings, Sussex, of a heart attack, leaving his widow, second wife Patti Rosenburg. [1]

Works

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The term later became applied in Great Britain to a form of quarrelsome domestic drama epitomised by John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger . In America, the term was associated with Paddy Chayefsky and other dramatists who created gritty plays for live television during the 1950s. [5]
  2. ↑ John Bratby, "distinguished a painter as he was,... the reversion was entirely at his insistence. He feared and resented the competition she offered to his reputation as the one and only painting Bratby." [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Siméon Chardin</span> French painter (1699–1779)

Jean Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities. Carefully balanced composition, soft diffusion of light, and granular impasto characterize his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Cézanne</span> French painter (1839–1906)

Paul Cézanne was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation and influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century, whose work formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and early 20th century Cubism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre-Auguste Renoir</span> French painter and sculptor (1841–1919)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Singer Sargent</span> American painter (1856–1925)

John Singer Sargent was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, Spain, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Sickert</span> British artist (1860–1942)

Walter Richard Sickert was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid and late 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual art of the United States</span>

Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization, there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial architecture and the accompanying styles in other media were quickly in place. Early colonial art on the East Coast initially relied on artists from Europe, with John White the earliest example. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists primarily painted portraits, and some landscapes in a style based mainly on English painting. Furniture-makers imitating English styles and similar craftsmen were also established in the major cities, but in the English colonies, locally made pottery remained resolutely utilitarian until the 19th century, with fancy products imported.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Stubbs</span> British painter (1724–1806)

George Stubbs was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Reynolds and Gainsborough. Stubbs' output includes history paintings, but his greatest skill was in painting animals, perhaps influenced by his love and study of anatomy. His series of paintings on the theme of a lion attacking a horse are early and significant examples of the Romantic movement that emerged in the late 18th century. He enjoyed royal patronage. His painting Whistlejacket hangs in the National Gallery, London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbizon School</span> 19th century artistic movement

The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farmworkers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Collier (painter)</span> British Pre-Raphaelite painter and writer

John Maler Collier was a British painter and writer. He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation. Both of his marriages were to daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley. He was educated at Eton College, and he studied painting in Paris with Jean-Paul Laurens and at the Munich Academy starting in 1875.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitchen sink realism</span> British social realist artistic movement

Kitchen sink realism is a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose protagonists usually could be described as "angry young men" who were disillusioned with modern society. It used a style of social realism which depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons, living in cramped rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore controversial social and political issues ranging from abortion to homelessness. The harsh, realistic style contrasted sharply with the escapism of the previous generation's so-called "well-made plays".

<i>The Rebel</i> (1961 film) 1961 British film by Robert Day

The Rebel is a 1961 British satirical comedy film directed by Robert Day and starring Tony Hancock. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The film concerns the clash between bourgeois and bohemian cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant</span> French painter (1845–1902)

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, born Jean-Joseph Constant, was a French painter and etcher best known for his Oriental subjects and portraits.

Carel Victor Morlais Weight, was an English painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Joshua Chaplin</span> French painter

Charles Joshua Chaplin was a French painter and printmaker who painted both landscapes and portraits. He worked in techniques such as pastels, lithography, watercolor, chalk, oil painting and etching. He was best known for his elegant portraits of young women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Miller (artist)</span> Irish artist

Nick Miller is an Irish contemporary artist who has become known for reinvigorating painting and drawing in the traditional genres of portraiture, landscape and still-life. He has developed an intense and individual approach to the practice of working directly from life, that has been described as a form of encounter painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humphrey Ocean</span> English artist, born 1951

Humphrey Ocean is a contemporary British painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal painter</span> Person who creates paintings of animals

An animal painter is an artist who specialises in the portrayal of animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fauvism</span> Artistic style

Fauvism is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of les Fauves, a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1904 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1905–1908, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were André Derain and Henri Matisse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Peter Quinn</span> Australian portrait painter

James Peter Quinn was an Australian portrait painter born in Melbourne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Cooke</span> British artist and educator (1927–2008)

Jean Esme Oregon Cooke RA was an English painter of still lifes, landscapes, portraits and figures. She was a lecturer at the Royal Academy and regularly exhibited her works, including the summer Royal Academy exhibitions. She was commissioned to make portraits by Lincoln College and St Hilda's College, Oxford. Her works are in the National Gallery, Tate and the Royal Academy collections. In the early years of her marriage, she signed her works Jean Bratby.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Roberta Smith (23 July 1992). "John Bratby Is Dead; 'Kitchen Sink' Artist and a Novelist, 64". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  2. ↑ 117 artworks by or after John Bratby , Art UK
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ian Chilvers; John Glaves-Smith (2009). A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press. p. 259. ISBN   978-0-19-923965-8.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "John Bratby 1928–1992". Tate. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  5. ↑ Rutherford, Paul. When Television Was Young. University of Toronto Press, 1990.
  6. ↑ "Kill To Get Crimson". MarkKnopfler.com. Archived from the original on 23 June 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  7. ↑ "John Bratby". Royal Academy of Arts.
  8. ↑ portrait of Paul McCartney, 1967 by John Bratby (unfinished background) | http://thegilly.tumblr.com/post/20518793459/john-bratbys-painting-of-paul-mccartney-1967
  9. ↑ "Pretty Boy Paul McCartney portrait goes on sale", Evening Standard, 16 September 2010.
  10. ↑ portrait of Paul McCartney and Flowers, 1967 by John Bratby | https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/paul-mccartney-and-flowers-22003
  11. ↑ John Bratby (1960). Breakdown. London: Hutchinson.
  12. ↑ John Bratby (1962). Brake Pedal Down. London: Hutchinson.
  13. 1 2 "Jean Cooke". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. 22 August 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  14. 1 2 "Jean Cooke: Painter of wit and subtlety". The Independent. independent.co.uk. 11 August 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  15. 1 2 Philip Vann (28 August 2008). "Jean Cooke, obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  16. ↑ "Jean Cooke: a painter". The Times. 14 August 2008. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  17. ↑ "Baby in pram in garden, 1956, John Bratby". Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  18. ↑ "Three Self Portraits with a White Wall, John Bratby". Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.