Ray Atkins is a British figurative artist, member of the St Ives School & 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 ...

and educator. He was born in 1937 in

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal c ...

, Devon, and studied art at Bromley College of Art and at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. He is known particularly for his large paintings, painted in situ over a period of weeks or months. Atkins taught at

Bournemouth College of Art Arts University Bournemouth (abbreviated AUB) is a further and higher education university based in Poole, England, specialising in art, performance, design, and media. It was formerly known as The Arts University College at Bournemouth a ...

from 1965–70, at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

’s department of fine art under Claude Rogers and in 1971 at Epsom School of Art. He went on to paint in Cornwall, teaching at Falmouth School of Art. In 2009, he moved to France, where he continues to paint.

Life and career

After graduating from the Slade in 1964, Atkins initially worked in London. He was influenced by the painting of

Frank Auerbach Frank Helmut Auerbach (born 29 April 1931) is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon ...

, and while he was at the

for postgraduate studies he worked in Auerbach’s studio. Before leaving London he completed a series of large paintings of

Millwall Dock Millwall Dock is a dock at Millwall, London, England, located south of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs. History The scheme was developed speculatively by a partnership of John Kelk and John Aird & Co.'The Millwall Docks: The docks', in S ...

. Atkins taught at Bournemouth College of Art from 1965–70. He moved to Reading in 1970 to teach at Reading University’s department of fine art,, where he worked alongside

John Wonnacott John Henry Wonnacott CBE (born 1940, London, England) is a British painter. Wonnacott trained at the Slade School of Fine Art during 1958–63. He taught at Reading University's department of fine art alongside Ray Atkins from 1965 to 1973, reca ...

. Atkins' style of teaching was to paint alongside the students. Frank Auerbach, who was an occasional visiting tutor at Reading, commented on this in conversation with Atkins: 'I was very impressed by that fact that unlike most teachers ..you seemed to be spending all your time in the room with the students. Setting an example, the best thing you could do.' In 1974 he moved to Cornwall, where he taught at Falmouth School of Art. In his own art, he produced a series of paintings of the industrial heritage of Cornwall: old mines, quarries and the open cast china clay pits around

St Austell St Austell (; kw, Sans Austel) is a town in Cornwall, England, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon. St Austell is one of the largest towns in Cornwall; at the 2011 census it had a population of 19,958. History St Austell was ...

and on

Bodmin Moor Bodmin Moor ( kw, Goon Brenn) is a granite moorland in north-eastern Cornwall, England. It is in size, and dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. It includes Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall, and Rough Tor, ...

. He became a member of the London Group in 1978. View from Ray Atkins' house, near Aspet, France

In 2009 Atkins relocated, with his partner dancer and choreographer Hsiao Hwa Li, to a remote farmstead near Aspet, Haute Garonne in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. He is represented by Art Space Gallery , Michael Richardson Contemporary Art London since 1989.

Style and influences

Atkins typically creates a painting over a period of weeks or months. "In a sense, my paintings are the opposite of Impressionism. My paintings are often constructed over a fairly long timescale of a few days to a few months. It is by the accumulation of several moments, from my observations over a long period and the work of the material that I recreate a new situation, the sensation of the moment”. While at Reading, Atkins started to work on gigantic paintings out of doors, painting close to the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...

. "I was reading about

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

, about how he wanted all his buildings to have a human measurement, and I thought painting should have this connection with the human body as well and so I decided to do a six foot square picture. He found a suitable site at Milwall Dock and obtained permission from the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and it ...

to paint there. Since that time, Atkins paintings have usually been created on-site, and are often on a monumental scale. As

Leon Kossoff Leon Kossoff (10 December 1926 – 4 July 2019) was a British figurative painter known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England. Early years and education Kossoff was born in Islington, London, and spent most of his early ...

wrote in 2003: "Ray Atkins uses the outside world as a studio. The landscapes emerge from day to day involvement with an ever changing subject which is finally committed to a specific visual experience. I have admired these extraordinary paintings for many years." After moving to Cornwall, he developed his method of painting on large scale from direct observation of the landscape, leaving the works were left in situ until finished. He sets up his boards, often up to three metres wide and weighing fifty kilograms, in front of the landscape, fixing the work to the ground securely and leaving them in place over a period of weeks as works in progress.

Collections

Atkins' works can be found in many public and private collections, including the British Council, the

Arts Council of England The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...

, the British Museum,Ray Atkins on the British Museum website
/ref> the Newlyn Art Gallery and

's collection.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* 1970: Piers Morris Gallery, London * 1974:

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 f ...

* 1977: Newlyn Art Gallery: * 1983:

Royal Institution of Cornwall The Royal Institution of Cornwall (RIC) is a Learned society in Truro, Cornwall, United Kingdom. It was founded in Truro on 5 February 1818 as the Cornwall Literary and Philosophical Institution. The Institution was one of the earliest of seven ...

, Truro * 1985: Galerie Leisten und Thiesen, Munster, Germany * 1988: Eurogallery, London * 1989: ''New Paintings'' Art Space Gallery, London * 1991: ''New Paintings'' Art Space Gallery, London * 1993: ''New Paintings'' Art Space Gallery, London * 1995: ''New Paintings'' Art Space Gallery, London * 1996: ''Ray Atkins retrospective'', Art Space Gallery, London * 1996: ''Ray Atkins retrospective'',

Royal West of England Academy The Royal West of England Academy (RWA) is Bristol's oldest art gallery, located in Clifton, Bristol, near the junction of Queens Road and Whiteladies Road. Situated in a Grade 2* listed building, it hosts five galleries and an exhibition progra ...

, Bristol * 1997: ''

Kilkenny Arts Week The Kilkenny Arts Festival, formally known as Kilkenny Arts Week, was founded in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1974. It covers a number of art forms, including classical music and performance. Playwright and poet Seamus Heaney gave a reading of some of ...

, Kilkenny Castle Ireland'', (invited artist) * 1998: ''New Paintings'', Art Space Gallery, London * 1999: ''Ray Atkins and the Figure'', Art Space Gallery, London * 2001: ''Broken Ground'', Wheal Jane mine, Truro (in collaboration with poet Peter Redgrove and composer Paul Hancock * 2001: ''Rhythm of the Seasons'', Art Space Gallery, London * 2003: ''Paintings 2003'', Art Space Gallery, London * 2005: ''Paintings 2005'', Art Space Gallery, London * 2007: ''Paintings and Drawings 2007'', Art Space Gallery, London * 2009: ''Aspet s'Expose (invité d'honneur)'', Aspet, Haute- PaintingsGaronne, France * 2011: ''Ray Atkins: The Long View: from Cornwall to the Pyrenees'', Art Space Gallery, London and touring: * 2012: ''Ray Atkins: The Long View: from Cornwall to the Pyrenees'', Dean Clough Art Gallery, Halifax, West Yorkshire * 2014: Jean Marmignon Theatre Gallery, St Gaudens, France * 2015: ''At the Forest's Edge'' Art Space Gallery, London * 2016: ''The Reading Years'' Reading Museum, Reading, UK

Selected group exhibitions

* 1961 onwards:

exhibitions. * 1964: ''

Young Contemporaries New Contemporaries is an organisation in the United Kingdom, UK that works to support emerging artists at the beginning of their careers by introducing them to the visual arts sector and to the public through a variety of platforms, including an an ...

'' * 1968: ''From Life'',

Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (formerly 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 that hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects. T ...

* 1974: ''British Painting '74'',

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

, London * 1978: ''Newlyn Society at Pont Aven'', Brittany, France * 1982: ''Summer Show I'',

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery ...

, London * 1983: Cleveland International Drawing Biennale * 1984: Dortmund Art Fair, Germany * 1985:

Royal Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fi ...

(invited artist), Mall Galleries, London * 1986: ''Twentieth Century British Artists and the Sea'',

Laing Art Gallery The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It ...

, Newcastle * 1989: ''Salute to Turner'', Agnew's, London * 1995:

Royal Academy summer exhibition The Summer Exhibition is an open art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sc ...

* 2001: ''The

at the Walk'' * 2005: ''Tree-Mendous'', Falmouth Art Gallery * 2011: ''Flashback'', Art Space Gallery, London

Bibliography

Buckman David, (2006), ''Artists in Britain since 1945'', Vol 2, Art Dictionaries Ltd, Bristol

References

External links

Painting with Ray Atkins, film by Henry Rupert Willmott on Youtube

The Guardian on Ray Atkins' 2012 exhibition at Dean Clough
*

on Ray Atkins' work]
Paintings on the move, Reading Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atkins, Ray 1937 births 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Modern painters St Ives artists Living people English contemporary artists 20th-century English male artists 21st-century English male artists