Our Artists
Craigie Aitchison CBE RSA, RA (1926 - 2009)
One of Britain’s most popular and respected figurative artist. Employing a deliberately naive style he adopted a technique using careful measuring and thinly applied paint to achieve subtle colour harmonies . Many images contain religious imagery.
Richard Allen (tbc)
Wildlife Artist, printmaker and painter who is inspired primarily by British Birds and wildlife found in his native East Anglia
Stuart Anderson (1967)
Stuart Anderson studied sculpture at Winchester School of Art, followed by Royal College of Art. He is best known for his bronze sculpture of figures, horses, greyhounds and other animals.
Ted Atkinson R.E., FRBS (1934 - 2016)
Sculptor and printmaker. Initially best known for his international architectural sculptures sited in Britain, Germany, Holland and USA. More recently he focussed on printmaking. Ted represented the UK at the Venice Bienale.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE (1912 - 2004)
A Scottish born artist known as was one of the foremost British abstract artists, a member of the influential Penwith Society of Arts
Roderic Barrett (1926 - 204)
Bartlett was a figurativee Painter and Printmaker who lived and worked in Colchester. He was fundamentally suspicious of Modernism and Post-Modernist art theories, disregarding modern trends.
Charles Bartlett RWS RE ARCA (1921)
Charles Bartlett is one of Britain’s foremost talented watercolour artists and printmakers. His artworks illustrate his love of the light in East Anglia, the flat landscape and the estuaries.
Richard Bawden RWS, NEAC, RE (1936)
The son of Edward and Charlotte Bawden. Richard is a very versatile artist - a noted printmaker and watercolour artist from Suffolk. He has also worked on commissions, book illustrations, murals, glass-engraving, cast-iron furniture design and taught printmaking
Edward Bawden CBE RA (1903 - 1989)
Edward Bawden, CBE RA (1903–1989) was an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture.[1] .
Dame Elizabeth Blackadder DBE, RWS, RA, RSA (1931 - 2021)
Dame Elizabeth Blackadder is widely known for her amazing images of cats and flowers. Her work can be seen at the Tate Gallery, Museum of Modern Art in New York and has appeared on a series of postage stamps.
Sir Peter Blake OBE (1932)
Sir Peter Blake is acknowledged as The Grandfather of Pop Art plus designed Beatles Sergeant Pepper album.
Sandra Blow RA (1925 - 2006)
Sandra Blow RA was one of the leading lights of the abstract art movement of the 1950s in St. Ives, Cornwall.
Niki Bowers
An East Anglia printmaker inspired by wildlife, open skies, flocks of birds, landscapes and seascapes typical of the region.
Edward Burra (1905 - 1976)
Printmaker and Painter in watercolour (frequently on a large scale) landscapes and still life and subjects often with macabre overtones
Simon Carter (1961)
This artist's landscapes and seascapes continually blur the devisions between abstract and figurative art. He is driven to continuously make observations playing with painting process to convey his reaction to the Essex shoreline
Patrick Caulfield CBE RA ARCA (1936 - 2005)
Caulfield was part of the British Pop Art Movement. His distinguished style of minimal lines and flat colours was revolutionary at the time.
Michael Chase (1915 - 2001)
Michael Chase mainly works in watercolour. He is inspired by his love of travel and often depicts historical buildings and artifacts. He enjoys mixing patterns with landscapes creating rich collage capturing the essence of a cultural awakening.
Chloe Cheese RCA (1952)
Chloë Cheese began work as an artist and freelance illustrator after leaving the Royal College of Art in 1976. She wanted her work to feel informal as though drawn directly onto the printed page. She rarely drew figures. Chloëʼs personal work always concerns her view of the world around her which she interprets according to her own observation and sensibility.
Bernard Cheese RCA R.E. (1925 - 2013)
Cheese, who was married to Sheila Robinson. Strong connections with Great Bardfield in the 1950s. He studied at the Royal College of Art, where he was influenced by Edwin La Dell. printmaking at St Martin's School of Art from 1950 to 1968, then at Goldsmiths College from 1970–78, and Central School of Art and Design.[1]
Vasant Chinchwadkar (1934)
Vasant is an Indian artist who shares his time between India and UK. He tends to paint nudes and figures using a folk art style mixed with a little surrealism
Henry Collins (1910 - 1994)
A colchester based artist who worked as a designer, painter, and Art Tutor
Ben Coode-Adams (tbc)
Artist, Sculptor, Project Manager, Blacksmith, Builder, Forester, Farmer, Janitor,
Eileen Cooper RA (1953)
Well known as a printmaker and painter, her stylised work is characterised by the use of bold linear figures encompassing a playful narrative.
Michael Coulter (1937)
Michael's observation of people, birds and the ordinary are portrayed skilfully with a light touch and quirky charm. Coastal and estuary settings of Essex, Suffolk & Norfolk regularly feature in his work.
Hugh Cronyn (1905 - 1996)
A successful figurative painter and printmaker who had a strong connection with Colchester Art Society
Clare Curtis (00)
Stunning printmaker & Illustrator who lives and works in East Anglia
Alan Davie RA (1920 - 2014)
James Alan Davie was a Scottish painter and musician. He was born in Grangemouth in 1920 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art in the late 1930s. An early exhibition of his work came through the Society of Scottish Artists
Charles Debenham NDD (1933)
The Streets are Charles Debenham's studio as he has painted local towns and villages in East Anglia, especially in North Essex and Suffolk border areas.
James Dodds RCA (1957)
James Dodds trained as a shipwright in Maldon, but is better known for his distinctive linocuts depicting coastal towns and nautical myths and his large unique and beautiful paintings of boats.
John Doubleday (1947)
His international reputation is more for public sculpture, howeever both his personal paintings and sculpture have a strong mystical sense as he contemplates ones journey through life.
Tracey Emin CBE RA (1963)
Tracey Emin is one of the so-called Young British Artists (YBAs). She is known for shocking the public with her intimate works of art - in particular her piece My Bed, which was part of the 1999 Turner Prize exhibition, and other works of a sexual nature.
Ravilious Eric (1903 - 1942)
Ravilious was a noted war artist, designer, illustrator, printmaker and painter.
Melvyn Evans (1958)
Melvyn is predominantly a printmaker with a unique style. He is able to capture the essence of a place reflecting the shapes and the colours often encorporating boats and life by the sea
Helen Fay RCA (tbc)
Known for her etchings which work which illustrate the beauty, dignity and character of animals . The poise and movement of animals, their behaviour and nature.
Mary Fedden OBE RA (1915 - 2012)
Mary was born in Bristol and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. She developed her own unique style of painting imaginative bold quirky and colourful still lives, flowers, people reminiscent of artists such as Matisse and Braque.
Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930 - 1993)
Is internationally recognised as a major 20th Century British sculptor. Her sculptures, drawings and prints were and continue to be widely exhibited and purchased for public and private collections throughout the world.
Sir Terry Frost OBE RA (1915 - 2003)
Frost is a well known St. Ives artist recognized for his abstract paintings and prints. He uses distinctive exquisite bold colours, circular forms and abstract compositions.
Anthony Frost (1951)
is an English painter noted for his abstract works consisting of brightly coloured prints and collages.
Moss Fuller RCA (1937 - 2021)
Moss fuller is a painter and printmaker whose love of the land in Suffolk, consistently inspired and informed her art.
Eric Gill (1882 - 1940)
English sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement
Anthony Gormley OBE (1950)
Turner Prize winning artist, best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in Gateshead in the North of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected ...who expresses a particular interest in the human body. Its physical extension in space, skin as its uttermost point-but also for the sensation of the body as a place to inhabit: where do we begin and where do we end? At our skin?
Perry Grayson CBE RA (1960)
Grayson Perry CBE RA is an English contemporary artist. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foibles"
Maggi Hambling CBE (1945)
A very successful versatile, honest dynamic and bold artist committed to her subject. Arguably best known for her steel scallop shells installed on Aldeburgh beach.
Richard Hamilton (1922 - 2013)
Richard Hamilton was the founder of Pop art and a visionary who outlined its aims and ideals. A lollipop from one of his early collages furnished the movement with its title. His visual juxtapositions from the 1950s were the first to capture the frenetic energy of television, and remind us of how strange the vacuum, tape recorder, and radio must have seemed for the first generations that experienced them. "Pop Art" the British artist declared, would be: "Popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business."
Angela Harding (tbc)
British birds and wild life have inspired Angela’s images since her student days, in particular her love of familiar garden birds, and also Sea birds found in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cornwall. Working mainly in lino/vinyl and silkscreen, she illustrates her passion for line, combining atmosphere, sense of place and strength of form.
Ian Hay RCA (1940)
Ian Hay is known for his exquisite paintings of London, Venice, Paris in addition to landscapes in and around his local town of Colchester. His impressionist style capturing the light and charm with subtle colours is held together with strong drawing
Mark Hearld (1974)
Hearld is fascinated by nature and its inhabitants. Foxes chickens, cattle and a array of plants and fauna regularly feature in his art works
Ronald Hellen
Ronald's colourful paintings are essentially about place and trying to capture the atmosphere peculiar to particular buildings, scenes or locations.
Stephen Henderson (1956)
Carved wooden sculptures of Birds and Fish usually found along the Essex Marshes nearby where he lives and works
Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903 - 1975)
Known as a leading sculptor of the 20th Century and leading 'St. Ives' artist. Her work exemplifies Modernism and one of the key figures in the development of abstraction.
Gertrude Hermes OBE RA (1901 - 1983)
Gertrude Hermes was a British wood-engraver and sculptor. Hermes was a member of the English Wood Engraving Society and exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers, the Royal Academy and The London Group during the 1930s
Clive Hicks-Jenkins (1951)
Clive is a renown actor, director & stage designer who has succesfully turned his hand to painting, printmaking and illustration.
David Hockney RA RCA (1937)
David Hockney is without doubt the best known and most influentual painter, printmaker and photograph of his generation worldwide. Notorious for his large colourful paintings reflecting life in California, his amazing use of glorious colours and an amazing draughsman.
Iona Howard
Predomininatly a printmaker who works using the carborundum technique to capture the landscapes of Cornwall and more recently The Fens. Reflecting the flatness and ever changing light and colours.
Peter Howson OBE (1958)
is a Scottish painter. He was a British official war artist in 1993 during the Bosnian War
John Hoyland RA (1934 - 2011)
John Hoyland studied at Sheffield School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. His work is represented in public collections including the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate and the Victoria & Albert Museum. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1991.
Walter Hoyle ARCA (1922 - 2000)
Painter printmaker and illustrator who became known as one of the Bardfield Artists
Albert Irvin OBE RA (1922 - 2015)
Albert Irvin is a celebrated British artist best known for his exuberant abstract compositions. His compelling distinctive and bold screen prints focus on capturing his experience of the world
Wendy Jacob RWS
Wendy is best known for her gouache paintings of still lives gardens and plants using beautiful and subtle colours.
Olwen Jones RWS RE (1945)
Owen Jones expresses her passion for the natural world with simply exquisite watercolours. Drawn to conservatories and green houses full of flowers, foliage and an abundance of natural sunlight.
McDonagh Kay
Kay is a printmaker who specializes in characterful images of Cats and Dogs
Anita Klein PPRE (1960)
Anita Klein's subjects are autobiographical, incorporating reoccurring themes such family, her love of swimming, as angels and wine or humorously celebrating the small moments in everyday life.
Karolina Larusdottir RWS RE (1944 - 2019)
Karolina is a painter printmaker, who creates a mystic world of her own, with imaginary people maybe from memory or ideas which often involve floating angels and strange scenarios, each wrapped up in a surreal and timeless atmosphere.
Kit Leese
Kit is an Essex based artist and is an experienced landscape painter who specialises in gouache and watercolour. He is also a printmaker and one of the founding members of Twelve PM
Martin Leman RBA RWS (1934)
Known worldwide for his cat paintings but is also an excellent painter of still life which often containing stones with a sense of St. Ives about them. Martin has had many one man shows in London, and has also shown regularly in St Ives.
Jill Leman PRWS RBA
Current President of The Royal Watercolour Society. Jill is best known for hers distinctive colourful yet subtle still lives full of beauty and tenderness
Angie Lewin (1963)
Angie Lewin is a well known printmaker and painter known for her unique style capturing plants, flowers, seedheads and more.
Sanchia Lewis (1960)
Best knowns for her paintings and prints af animals whereby she has used her subconscious mind. Her ideas evolve into richly textured, brightly coloured works
Bennett Lucy
Best known for her provocative portraits of women, London-based British artist Lucie Bennett explores female identity and sexuality using simple, elegantly applied lines and block colour forms to create distinctive, timeless pieces.
Jennie Mace
Jennie Mace is an Essex based Artist She initially trained and worked as a Medical Scientist in the School of Pathology, The Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London,WI. After leaving the Middlesex, Jennie studied at the Colchester School of Art. She was subsequently Tutored by David Mynett, Sir Edward Fairfax-Lucy, the late John Miller ,Jeremy Le Grice and Roger Dellar. Jennie's paintings are in private collections all over the worls including ,Spain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, G South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and USA.
Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)
Matisse is best known as a pioneer of the Fauvism Movement and is one of the most famous artists of 20th Century. His cut out series from 1950, later published as colour lithographs by Mourlot Freres, in the Verve 35/36 are popular images today
Kay McDonagh
Kay is known for her exquisite drypoint etchings of animals, in particular cats and dogs
Bruce McLean (1944)
Initially a sculptor who likes to convey sculptural objects now mainly in 2D form. Best known for his bold atmospheric predominantly abstract compositions.
Helen Millar
Helen is a watercolour artist best known for her fascination with organic pattern and especially her depictions of flowers. With a background of textile design having worked with Sandersons and John Lewis.
Sir Henry Moore (1898 - 1986)
He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. The most famous British Sculptor in living memory, noted for his large bronze abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures.
Elizabeth Morris
Liz is a printmaker who enjoys islands and the sea. Sea and sand patterns, shapes of stones, textures, imprints in mud and tracks of birds, fish, gulls - and most recently – sea myths and biblical stories with sea references, are all used as starting points for her etchings
John Northcote Nash CBE RA (1893 - 1977)
John Nash was a British painter of landscapes and stilllifes, and a woodengraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works. He was the younger brother of Paul Nash,
Ben Nicholson (1994 - 1982)
Known as one of the St Ives Artists for his beautiful minimal lines and subtle abstract works. Ben and Winifred Nicholson were at the forefront of the Modern British movement
John O'Connor RCA RE RWS (1913 - 2004)
John O'Connor was born in Leicester in 1913. He studied at the Royal College of Art under Eric Ravillious and John Nash. He illustrated many books and had his work in many exhibitions. From 1948 to 1964 O'Connor was Head of Colchester College of Art. His work is held at the Arts Council, The Tate Gallery, and British Museum.
Julian Opie (1958)
Opie graduated in 1982 from Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was taught by conceptual artist and painter Michael Craig-Martin. He is best known for his portraits and animated walking figures, rendered with minimal detail in black line drawing, are hallmarks of the artist's style.
Dione Page R.W.A (1936 - 2021)
Dione enjoys weaving together still life with landscape and seascape painting with gouache and mixed media. Her main influences are Mary Fedden and Edward Bawden
Shanti Panchal RWS RBA (1951)
Shanti Panchal is a leading London-based Indian artist with an international reputation. Painting with watercolour building layer upon layer, he employs an earthen palette depicting his early years spent in a village in Gujarat, Western India.
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi KBE RA (1924 - 2005)
One of the earliest British Pop Artists and artist. He major figure in the international art sphere who collected fragments and created his own interpretation and vision of the modern world.
Victor Pasmore (1908 - 1998)
Perhaps the most influential abstract artist in Britain and leading abstract painters & printmaker of our time
Caulfield Patrick CBE RA ARCA (1936 - 2005)
Royal Academician who was part of the British Pop movement.
Barbara Peirson (tbc)
Barbara is an Essex based artist who mainly paints in acrylics. She is interested in figures landscapes and estuary Life in addition to Still life. She is a member of the esteemed Contemporary British Painting group.
Grayson Perry CBE RA (1960)
Grayson Perry CBE RA is an English contemporary artist. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foibles"
Frederic Pierre (1951)
Frédéric Pierre is a French Postwar & Contemporary artist who is best known for his etchings depicting figures in social situations with a sense of sexual tension
John Piper RCA (1903 - 1992)
Considered an important British Artist of 20th Century. Famous for his atmospheric images of ruined churches, castles and Stately Homes around the UK.
Patrick Procktor RA (1936 - 2002)
Patrick Procktor RA was a prominent English artist of the late 20th century who had an exquisite sense of colour and design.
Sally Pudney (tbc)
Her work is mainly of East Anglian coastal scenes, especially Mersea Island which she has known well since childhood, seeking to capture the particular character of spaciousness and subtle colour in the sea, the dramatic skies, the small boats and the mud! Other coastal paintings focus on North Norfolk and the Suffolk coast.
Marc Quinn
British Contemporary Artist known as a membber of the young British Artists. His subject often concentrates on the human body, questioning identity, enviroment and our place in the world
Barbara Rae CBE RA (1943)
Rae's imagery combines influence of travel & sun drenched colour with human traces and patterns in the landscape to successfully create exotic abstract and semi abstract compositions.
Eric Ravilious RCA (1903 - 1942)
Ravilious was an English watercolour painter, wood engrave, designer, book illustrator and war artist
Dame Paula Rego (1935)
An artist interested in a powerful narrative who often draws from folk tales and stories told to her in her childhood which resonate today.
Bridget Riley CBE (1931)
Riley is famous for being the pioneer of Op Art. Known for her geometric patterns which give a sensation to movement to move to the eye. In 1960's her black and white patterns greatly influenced the fashions and designs of the day
Professor Freddie Robins (1965)
Freddie Robins is Professor of Textiles at the Royal College of Art, London. She produces contemporary art works using textile materials and processes. Robins is renowned for her inventive and provocative use of knitting,
Michael Rothenstein RA (1908 - 1993)
Early Pop Artist and pioneer of British printmaking. Also known as one of the Bardfield Artists
Pam Schomberg (tbc)
Pam lives & works in North Essex. She specializes in constructed and hand-built porcelain and stoneware.
Anne Schwegmann-Fielding (tbc)
Anne Schwegmann-Fielding is an internationally renowned British sculptor and mosaic artist. She has been creating artworks using predominantly recycled materials for commission and exhibition since the early 1990's. She is based in the Roman capital of Britain, Colchester, UK
Arabella Shand
Arabella paints a delightful glorious abd colourful still lifes, atmospheric landscapes and dreamlike figures.
David Shrigley OBE (1968)
Shrigley is a celebrated Contemporary artist who is best known for his humorous animals and naive style
Michael Smee (1946)
Michael’s paintings reflect his interest in bar/cafe and pub life and the interaction of people within. Capturing a very British Culture which is slowly disappearing
Tessa Spencer Pryse RBA (tbc)
Tessa is based in Essex, East Anglia and her foremost talent is her successful capturing of light and colour as it bounces, reflects and highlights. Seascapes, estuary views of Essex, French vistas, cafe scenes, Venice markets and the occasional still life fill her canvasses. Her work is influenced by the French Impressionists and Scottish Colourists
Humphrey Spender (1910 - 2005)
Painter, printmaker, known foremost as a photographer He was given the job as the roving ‘Lensman’ by the Daily Mirror in 1935. In 1937 Spender became the photographer for the Mass Observation project, where he maintained the importance of being the ‘unobserved observer’. He subsequently worked for Picture Post magazine and as an Official War Office photographer during World War 2.
Alison Stockmarr
Currently she creates collaged art works that she defines in four distinct categories; Face Books, Picture Books, Collaged Record Covers and Alphabetical Encyclopaedias, all carried off with her signature playfulness and semantic irony and poking fun at social media.
Stephanie Stow
Stephanie is an abstract artist who paints using beautiful colours to convey her feelings towards nature and its ever changing patterns and moods.
Robin Tanner (1904 - 1988)
was an English artist, etcher and printmaker. He followed in the visionary tradition of Samuel Palmer and English neo-romanticism
Atkinson Ted (1928 - 2016)
Ted trained as a sculptor at Liverpool College of Art and the Slade School. He taught sculpture, initially in Exeter and later at Leeds and Coventry. He represented UK at the Venice Bienale in the 1950's
Glynn Thomas RE (1946)
Glynn Thomas specialises in Etchings of locations around the UK especially of places such as Walberswick, Southworld, Cambridge and London - which all mean something to him. He loves detail and uses additional perspectives to enable him to include even more in his pictures.
Valerie Thornton R.E. (1931 - 1986)
painter and printmaker, was born in London on April 13, 1931. ... In 1944, she returned to London where her art studies began in 1949 at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting.
Julian Trevelyan (1910 - 1988)
Julian TREVELYAN was a Painter and engraver of Surrealist and Expressionist. He was also a poet. He was married to Mary Fedden
Charles F Tunnicliffe OBE RA (1901 - 1979)
Much of Tunnicliffe's work depicted birds in their natural settings and other naturalistic scenes. He illustrated Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter.[7] His work was also used to illustrate Brooke Bond tea cards and as a result was seen by millions of young people in the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s. He also illustrated a number of books, including the Ladybird books
Gavin Turk (1967)
Considered to be Avante-Guarde and one of the 'Young British Artists
Leon Underwood (1890 - 1975)
Leon Underwood (born 25 December 1890 in Shepherds Bush, London, died 9 October 1975) "The precursor of modern sculpture in Britain" was a noted British sculptor, painter, draughtsman and engraver as well as a writer and illustrator, scholar, teacher, philosopher and stained glass and furniture craftsman. He attended the Slade School of Art and founded the magazine The Island in 1931. His work was influenced by African and Cycladic designs.
Catherine Vitebsky
Vitebsky is a figurative sculptor working predominantly in bronze and casting her own work. She is preoccupied with transformation and with the anthropomorphic: the place where animal and human intersect, both in folklore and as it relates to the human condition.
Chris Wenlock (1947)
AN Essex artist who is attracted to grasses, expanses of wild flowers, beguiling buildings, dunes and beach huts by the Blackwater estuary
Philip Wilson Steer OM (1860 - 1942)
English painter who lived in Suffolk was best known for his seascapes and landscapes, influenced by John Constable and JMWTurner He also taught at the Slade School of Art for many years