Michael Andrews (artist)

Summary

Michael James Andrews RA (30 October 1928 – 19 July 1995) was a British painter.

Andrews in August 1975.

Life and work edit

Michael Andrews was born in Norwich, England, the second child of Thomas Victor Andrews and his wife Gertrude Emma Green. During his last year at school Andrews attended Saturday morning classes at the Norwich School of Art where he studied painting in oils with Leslie Davenport.[1] He completed his National service between 1947 and 1949, nineteen months of which was spent in Egypt.[2] From 1949 to 1953 he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art under William Coldstream, Lucian Freud, William Townsend and Lawrence Gowing.[3] Fellow students and friends there included Victor Willing, Keith Sutton, Diana Cumming, Euan Uglow[4] and Craigie Aitchison. In 1953 he spent six months in Italy at the British School at Rome after receiving a Rome Scholarship in Painting.

From 1958 he taught at the Slade and Chelsea School of Art. He held a fellowship at the Digswell Arts Trust between February 1958 and June 1960,[5] in that period he shared a studio with Patrick Swift.[6] In 1959 his painting A Man Who Suddenly Fell Over was acquired by the Tate Gallery. In the 1960s he painted works showing parties; later, the "Lights" series presented views from the air. Andrews was much impressed by a visit to Ayers Rock in 1983, but the works he produced toward the end of his life are of scenes from Scotland and London. In 1978 he moved to the village of Geldeston on the Norfolk/Suffolk border before moving to the village of Saxlingham Nethergate in 1981 in his home county of Norfolk. He was a member of the Norwich Twenty Group.

He painted Sax AD 832[7] in 1982 to celebrate 1,150 years of the village's history. The painting was auctioned at Christie's London on 20 June 2007 and was sold for £692,000. Major exhibitions of Andrews' works were held by the Arts Council in 1981 and Tate Britain in 2001. During 1988 he served on the Board of Trustees of The National Gallery in London, but he found travelling up from Norfolk for the meetings irksome and he did not complete his full term.[citation needed] He returned to London in 1992.

In 1994 he underwent an operation for cancer before dying in London on 19 July 1995.[3] A memorial service attended by many of his Soho and Slade friends was held at St. Mary's Church, Battersea .[8] He is buried in Perthshire.

Michael Andrews played a deaf-mute in Lorenza Mazzetti's Free Cinema film Together, alongside Eduardo Paolozzi (1955).[9]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Elena Crippa and Catherine Lampert, London Calling: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Andrews, Auerbach, and Kitaj J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2016) – Google Books pg 87
  2. ^ Chronology prepared by Ben Tufnell in Feaver, William, and Paul Moorhouse. Michael Andrews. London: Tate, 2001. ISBN 1-85437-368-4, pages 164–169
  3. ^ a b John Russell (27 July 1995). "Michael Andrews, British Painter, Is Dead at 66". The New York Times.
  4. ^ Catherine Lampert (23 July 1995). "OBITUARY : Michael Andrews". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022.
  5. ^ "Michael Andrews RA | Digswell Arts Trust". Archived from the original on 29 June 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
  6. ^ Milja Ficpatrik (7 September 2013). "Michael Andrews - Biography". Widewalls. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  7. ^ Sax AD 832 Retrieved 14 November 2007
  8. ^ Mills, John 'Which Yet Survive: Impressions of Friends, Family and Encounters', Quartet Books, London 2017 ISBN 978-0-7043-74355
  9. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Together (1956)". www.screenonline.org.uk.

Bibliography edit

  • Andrews, Michael, and William Feaver, eds. Lights: Michael Andrews. Museo Thyssen Bornemisza and The British Council, 2000. ISBN 84-88474-73-3
  • Calvocoressi, Richard. Michael Andrews: The Scottish Paintings. Edinburgh: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1991. ISBN 0-903598-16-7
  • Feaver, William, and Paul Moorhouse. Michael Andrews. London: Tate, 2001. ISBN 1-85437-368-4
  • Lampert, Catherine. Michael Andrews: The Delectable Mountain. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1991. ISBN 0-85488-093-3
  • Michael Andrews. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1981.
  • Peppiatt, Michael. A School of London: Six Figurative Painters: Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, R. B. Kitaj, Leon Kossoff. London: The British Council, 1987. ISBN 0-86355-051-7
  • Rock of Ages Cleft for Me: Recent Paintings. London: Anthony d'Offay Gallery, 1986. ISBN 0-947564-07-1
  • Wilcox, Tim, et al. The Pursuit of the Real: British figurative painting from Sickert to Bacon. London: Lund Humphries, 1990. ISBN 0-85331-571-X
  • Wilson, Colin St. John. The Artist at Work: On the Working Methods of William Coldstream and Michael Andrews. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1999. ISBN 0-85331-759-3
  • Michael Andrews, "Notes and Preoccupations", X magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2 (March 1960); An Anthology from X, Oxford University Press ( 1988)

External links edit

  • Michael Andrews at the Tate
  • Michael Andrews on Digswell Arts Trust
  • Artworks by or after Michael Andrews at the Art UK site
  • Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections