Harold Sydney Mockford (1932 – 15 April 2023) was an English artist based in

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

who was closely associated with the

Towner Gallery Towner Eastbourne (formerly Towner Art Gallery) is an art gallery located in Eastbourne, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. The gallery hosts one of the most significant public art collections in the Southern England, South of England ...

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...

. Mockford was born in the town and developed an early talent for art in preference to other subjects at school. Later he attended evening classes at Eastbourne School of Art and continued with his painting while working as a

dental technician A dental technician is a member of the dental team who, upon prescription from a dental clinician, constructs custom-made restorative and dental appliances. There are four major disciplines within dental technology. These are ''fixed prosthesis ...

Biography

Mockford mainly worked in

oils An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturat ...

on board, and considered a painting complete when it has reached 'that perfect moment of strangeness', a state achieved by his distinctive technique. He began with flat plains of colour, leaving no area blank, then left the work face down on a blanket until he was ready to resume. He then incorporated the smudges, smears and textures to build up the scene which first inspired his imagination. His subject was most often

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

, views of the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...

and coast of the Eastbourne area or of the harbour at

Newhaven Newhaven is a port town in the Lewes district of East Sussex, England, lying at the mouth of the River Ouse. The town developed during the Middle Ages as the nearby port of Seaford began drying up, forcing a new port to be established. A ...

where he lived from 1996. There were

townscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, Publishing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Tow ...

s too, and intimate pictures of his studio and family, including a remarkable series recalling his father's illness and death. The added strangeness of fading light made evening a favourite time of day. Most of the paintings are in private hands but the Towner owns fourteen; others are in

Brighton Museum Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is a municipally-owned public museum and art gallery in the city of Brighton and Hove in the South East of England. It is part of Brighton & Hove Museums. It costs £9.50 for a yearly pass, discounted to £7 for ...

and the

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and ...

. With encouragement from the abstract painter and Towner curator

William Gear William Gear RA RBSA (2 August 1915 – 27 February 1997) was a Scottish painter, most notable for his abstract compositions. Early life Gear was born in Methil in south-east Fife, Scotland, the son of Janet (1886-1955) and Porteous Gea ...

, Mockford's career flourished in 1959 when he had his first solo show in Eastbourne and exhibited with

The London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

of which Gear was a member. A solo exhibition at the Thackeray Gallery in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

followed, but Mockford was reluctant to commit himself to painting full-time and the self-promotion required to rely on art for a living. Mockford illustrated a book of poetry by Pam Hughes and was chosen as a 'National Parks hero' for his paintings inspired by the South Downs. His 80th birthday in 2012 was celebrated by a major retrospective at the Towner Gallery. Nineteen of Mockford's works are included in the BBC's Your Paintings collection. Mockford married Margaret in 1954, and they raised five children together. He died on 15 April 2023, at the age of 91.

References

External links

Towner Eastbourne
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Harold Mockford
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mockford, Harold 1932 births 2023 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters South Downs artists 20th-century English male artists 21st-century English male artists