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Prunella Clough (14 November 1919 – 26 December 1999) was a prominent
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
. She is known mostly for her paintings, though she also made prints and created assemblages of collected objects. She was awarded the Jerwood Prize for painting, and received a retrospective exhibition at
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
.


Background

Born on 14 November 1919 in
Chelsea, London Chelsea is an area in West London, England, due south-west of Kilometre zero#Great Britain, Charing Cross by approximately . It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the SW postcode area, south-western p ...
to an affluent upper-middle-class family, she was initially educated privately by her father, the poet Eric Taylor, before enrolling as a part-time student at the Chelsea School of Art (now
Chelsea College of Art and Design Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England. It offers further and higher education courses in fine art, graphic design, interior design, prod ...
) in 1937. In 1938, she took classes at Chelsea with the sculptor
Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...
. Her aunt was Irish designer
Eileen Gray Eileen Gray (born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith; 9 August 187831 October 1976) was an Irish interior designer, furniture designer and architect who became a pioneer of the Modern architecture, Modern Movement in architecture. Over her career, s ...
. Clough lived in London throughout her career.


Career

Apart from wartime service, during which she worked as a cartographer for the
Office of War Information The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...
, Clough painted full-time until her death in 1999, supplementing her income with teaching posts at Chelsea (1956–69) and
Wimbledon School of Art Wimbledon College of Arts, formerly Wimbledon School of Art, is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. The college specialises in theatre, screen and performance arts and design ...
(1966-97).''Prunella Clough'', Tufnell, B. (Ed) (2007, London, Tate Publishing), p.11 The Clough-Taylor family often holidayed in
Southwold Southwold is a seaside town and civil parish on the North Sea, in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It lies at the mouth of the River Blyth, Suffolk, River Blyth in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths ...
, and in 1945 Clough's mother Thora Clough purchased Woldside house in Southwold, which became an important base for the artist until it was sold after Thora's death in 1966. Clough retained strong links with the area throughout her career; the coastal landscape, a local quarry, and fishermen at nearby
Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...
and Yarmouth harbours provided significant early subjects. Clough also produced a number of still lifes. Clough had her first solo show at the Leger Gallery in London in 1947. In 1951, Clough participated in the exhibition 60 Paintings for '51, organised by the
Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...
to coincide with the 1951
Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Labour Party cabinet member Herbert Morrison was the prime mover; in 1947 he started with the ...
, for which they commissioned 60 artists to produce paintings of 4 by 5 feet or more. Clough's submission was entitled ''Lowestoft Harbour'' (1951), a painting of two fishermen weighing a catch of fish. The painting was subsequently purchased by the Arts Council Collection. Clough's early subject matter led to her being linked with Neo-Romantic artists such as John Minton and Michael Ayrton. From the 1950s onwards, she increasingly painted the industrial landscapes of post-
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
Britain. Although based in London, she made frequent trips to East Anglia and the Midlands. During the 1950s, Clough became close friends with the painter and critic John Berger; they went drawing together in the marshalling yards at Willesden Junction. Clough also visited a number of factories and industrial sites with the sculptor Ghisha Koenig, and became close friends with the painter David Carr, who also shared her interest in the industrial landscape as a subject. These trips resulted in a number of paintings of men and women at work in factories and on building sites, together with images of power stations, electrical plants and chemical works. The novelist Margaret Drabble has noted that while many of her early paintings included the human figure, it gradually disappeared from her works, and Clough's canvases became more abstract during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960, Clough had her first retrospective at the
Whitechapel Art Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...
, under the directorship of the curator
Bryan Robertson Bryan Robertson Order of the British Empire, OBE (1 April 1925 – 18 November 2002) was an English curator and arts manager described by ''Studio International'' as "the greatest Director the Tate Gallery never had". Biography Robertson was born ...
. During a 1982 interview with Robertson, which was published in the catalogue for an exhibition of Clough's work held that year at the Warwick Arts Trust, the artist described how: "I prefer to look at the urban or industrial scene or any unconsidered piece of ground." In the latter decades of her career, Clough made a number of abstract works that reference fragments of urban detritus and rubbish that she found on the streets of London, such as plastic bags, discarded gloves, and oil stains. The first time she exhibited these paintings was in 1989 in a show entitled ''Prunella Clough: Recent Paintings, 1980-1989'' at Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery in London. The exhibition was a “critical and financial success” and helped Clough gain recognition and popularity. The early 1980s saw Clough embark on a series of paintings that focussed on an abstracted 'gate' motif, and she also became fascinated by the shadows cast by passing people on subway walls, creating a number of works on this theme. In 1979, Clough played a key role in helping to organise the major retrospective of
Eileen Gray Eileen Gray (born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith; 9 August 187831 October 1976) was an Irish interior designer, furniture designer and architect who became a pioneer of the Modern architecture, Modern Movement in architecture. Over her career, s ...
's work at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, New York. Although Clough worked predominantly as a painter, she was also an accomplished
printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique ...
. Clough created lithographs early in her career, and from the early 1960s often worked at the Curwen Studio in Plaistow. Throughout her career, Clough also made a number of assemblages from found objects that she gathered on her trips to industrial sites, the extent of which only became clear when these were discovered in her studio after her death. Clough's work enjoyed increasing recognition from the 1970s onwards, with exhibitions at the
Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Galler ...
in 1976, followed by shows at the Warwick Arts Trust, the
Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (known as Hampstead Arts Centre until 1967 and Camden Arts Centre until 2020) is a contemporary art gallery in the London Borough of Camden, England. It hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects, with a prog ...
and
Kettle's Yard Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities. History and overview Kettle's Yar ...
. From 1988 Clough was represented by Annely Juda Fine Art. In 1999, the year of her death, she was awarded the Jerwood Prize for Painting, and in 2007 she received a retrospective exhibition at
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
. Prunella Clough is recognized as an accomplished artist, yet did not become as famous as some of her peers. A contributing factor to this was her love of privacy. She also was very generous in regards to money and her art. She would let people reproduce her work, but did not want money for it. When she sold or gave away a painting, she did not try to exercise authority or ownership over it anymore.


Artistic Style

Prunella Clough's paintings often share a mild or neutral colour palette, sometimes with punctuating strong or harsh colors. Clough cites the weather in England as the probable cause for this trend. Clough often made changes to her paintings after she had begun working on them. In doing this she left traces of the old lines and shapes, creating a many-layered surface. Her actual painting techniques furthered this by adding more texture. “Clough employed thick impasto, she daubed, she scraped, she gauged and scratched, she obliterated, experimenting with a variety of mixed media”. Gerard Hastings has described how Clough used a variety of tools and materials to apply paint to her canvas and create a variety of visual effects, including sandpaper, wire wool, rollers, wallpaper scrapers, and pieces of wire mesh. She would sometimes mix textured materials like sand into her paint. Clough's paintings gave unique views of everyday features of the urban landscape. Prunella Clough sometimes took photographs of her subject matter, but more important to her was the memory of the experience of seeing something. "Her subjects are closely observed details and scenes from the landscape. The images are combined and filtered through memory, and evolve through a slow process of layering and re-working." In an interview with Bryan Robertson she said, “I work from the subject matter, things perceived, and the things that I see tend to be somewhat murky”.


Awards

*The
City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
Midsummer Prize (1977) *The £30,000 Jerwood Prize for painting (1999) *She declined an OBE in 1968 and a
CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
in 1979.


Selected exhibitions

*Leger Gallery, London (1947) *Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London (1949) *
Leicester Galleries Leicester Galleries was an art gallery located in London from 1902 to 1977 that held exhibitions of modern British, French and international artists' works. Its name was acquired in 1984 by Peter Nahum, who operates "Peter Nahum at the Leiceste ...
, London (1953) * Whitechapel Gallery, London (1960, this was her first retrospective) *
Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provid ...
, London (1964, 1968) * Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford (1971) *Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (1972) *New Art Centre, London (1973, 1976) * Serpentine Galleries, London (1976) *
Perth, Western Australia Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
(1974) *
Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
(1976) *
Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
(1981) *Warwick Arts Trust (1982) *
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
(1988) * Annely Juda Fine Art, London (1989) *
Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (known as Hampstead Arts Centre until 1967 and Camden Arts Centre until 2020) is a contemporary art gallery in the London Borough of Camden, England. It hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects, with a prog ...
, London (1996) *Austin/Desmond Fine Art, London (1996, 2012) *
Kettle's Yard Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities. History and overview Kettle's Yar ...
, Cambridge (1999) *The Olympia Fine Art & Antiques Fair (2004, retrospective) *
Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...
(2007, retrospective) * Pallant House Gallery (2019–20, centenary)


Public collections

*
Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...
* Arts Council Collection *
Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...
, Oxford *
Bolton Museum Bolton Art Gallery, Library & Museum is a public museum, art gallery, library and aquarium in the town of Bolton, England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The museum, Bolton Museum, is housed within the grade II listed Le Mans ...
*
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is a large museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. The museum is situated in Clifton, about from the city centre. As part of Bristol Culture and Creative Industries it is run by the Bristol City Council with no ...
* British Council Collection, London * Camden Town Hall Extension, London * Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London *
Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the Unive ...
*
Courtauld Gallery The Courtauld Gallery () is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand, London, Strand in central London. It houses the collection of the Samuel Courtauld Trust and operates as an integral part of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The Court ...
, London * Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall *
Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities University museum, museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard ...
, Cambridge *
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 ...
* Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne * Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield * Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry * Jerwood Gallery, Hastings *
Kettle's Yard Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities. History and overview Kettle's Yar ...
, Cambridge *
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The ...
* Leeds Art Gallery *
Manchester Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, England. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupi ...
*
National Galleries of Scotland The National Galleries of Scotland (, sometimes also known as National Galleries Scotland) is the executive non-departmental public body that controls the three national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries, forming one of the Nation ...
. *
National Museum of Wales National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
, Cardiff * New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester * Pallant House Gallery, Chichester *
Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale ...
* Plymouth City Council Museum & Art Gallery *
Reading Museum Reading Museum (run by the Reading Museum Service) is a museum of the history of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire, and the surrounding area. It is accommodated within Reading Town Hall, and contains galleries describing ...
* Rugby Art Gallery & Museum * Salford Museum & Art Gallery * Southampton City Art Gallery *Southwark Art Collection, London * Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens * Tate, London *
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
, London *
2 Willow Road 2 Willow Road is part of a terraced housing, terrace of three houses in Hampstead, London designed by architect Ernő Goldfinger and completed in 1939. It has been managed by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, ...
(National Trust) London *
Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...
, Liverpool * Whitworth Gallery, Manchester * York Art Gallery


Death

She died on 26 December 1999, aged 80, following a battle with
cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
.


Favourite quote

"Painting is like throwing oneself into the sea to learn to swim." (Édouard Manet, often quoted in interviews by Clough)


Sources

*''Prunella Clough'', Banks, R. (Ed.) (2003, London, Annely Juda Fine Art),


References


External links

*
Prunella Clough at the Tate. Includes scanned diaries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clough, Prunella 1919 births 1999 deaths 20th-century English painters 20th-century English women artists Academics of Chelsea College of Arts Academics of Wimbledon College of Arts Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Artists from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea British women printmakers Deaths from cancer in England English cartographers English people of Irish descent English women painters Painters from London People from Chelsea, London People of the United States Office of War Information Women cartographers 20th-century British women painters