Gold fire bridge
oil and acrylic on canvas, 2002
59 1/8 x 70 7/8in, 150 x 180cm

Maurice Cockrill

Maurice Cockrill's latest work is a powerful sequence of lyrical abstracts which may come to be recognised as among his most dynamic and challenging works to date, building significantly on the standing he already enjoys as a master of colour theory and practice.

More comprehensively than almost any other British painter now active Cockrill's work over the years, always evolving, has defied short-term categorising, as he has engaged fruitfully with an immense range of approaches from photorealism to expressionism, sexually charged landscapes, mythological subjects and near abstractions. His commitment throughout to the craft of painting has earned him a legendary reputation as an inspiring teacher at major institutions from the Manchester and Nottingham Schools of Art to the Royal College of Art, Central St Martins School of Art and since 2004 as Head of the Royal Academy Schools and Keeper of the Royal Academy of Art. It has, no less, given him a reputation among fellow painters internationally as the 'painter's painter', leading to a major retrospective at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (1994).

In the 1980s Cockrill was drawn for a period to the Old Masters and adjusted his palette accordingly as he worked through a gamut of mythological and literary themes from Circe and Ophelia to the Venus and Mars series, responding vigorously to individual works such as Rubens' Horrors of War and Titian's Flaying of Marsyas, alongside an ongoing dialogue with the poetry of Rilke. Since then Cockrill's painting has grown increasingly abstract although retaining always overtones of landscape.

In the present series of nocturnes the landscape element has been replaced largely by the human figure in a mode of lyrical abstraction owing something to de Kooning in its celebration of the female form and something to Soutine in its sensuous qualities. Now the painter's attention concentrates on aspects of urbanism and allusions to some of the desperate and deplorable qualities of contemporary life have infiltrated his imagery, which he describes as 'provisional, layered character shifting, drenched, theatrical, like snatches of film where the subject is barely discernible'. It is no longer Nordic winged maidens or the symbolic passage of seasons which can be glimpsed within Cockrill's vigorous compositions but, closer to the experience of present urban society, the world of clubs, the explosive collision of personalities, social aspirations and perpetual feuding endemic to the underworld. In this new approach colour becomes of major importance as an expressive force, no longer the naturalistic colour of the English landscape but the 'strident colour of the city today, constant flux, indifference and abrasiveness, threatening to render us ineffectual in the face of such racing life'.

 

Biography

1936 Born Hartlepool, County Durham
1960-64 Studied Wrexham School of Art and University of Reading
1967-80 Lecturer, Faculty of Art, Liverpool Polytechnic
1971-81 Visits to Spain, Holland, Belgium and Germany and extended stay in Italy
1982 Moves to London
1982-85 Visiting tutor Schools of Art in Manchester, Portsmouth, Farnham, Winchester and Nottingham
1985-94 Visiting tutor Royal College of Art, Central School of Art and Saint Martins School of Art, London
1994 Nominated for Jerwood Prize
1995-97 Visiting tutor Royal Academy Schools
1999 Elected Royal Academy of Arts
2004 Elected Keeper of Royal Academy of Arts and Head of Royal Academy Schools

Awards
1977 Arts Council of GB, Flags and other Projects (prize-winner), Royal Festival Hall
1977-78 Arts Council of Great Britain Major Award. Extended visit to United States
1978-79 Arts Council, Works of Art in Public Spaces
1985 British Council Award

Television
1976 'Arena', BBC2 1981 'Celebration', Granada Television ? 1999 'Afon', Harlech Television

Solo Exhibitions
1971 Serpentine Gallery, London . Peterloo Gallery, Manchester . 1974 - 81 Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool . 1976 Liverpool Academy Gallery . 1979 St. Paul's Gallery, Leeds . 1979 - 80 Lime Street Station, Liverpool . 1981 Festival Commission, Milton Keynes . 1983 University of Nottingham Gallery . 1984 - 85 Edward Totah Gallery, London . 1985 Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf . 1986-2000 Galerie Bugdahn und Szeimies/Kaimer, Düsseldorf . 1987 - 96 Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London . 1988 Bernard Jacobson Gallery, New York . 1992 Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance . 1992 Plymouth Art Centre, Plymouth . 1994 - 2001 Galerie Helmut Pabst, Frankfurt . Galerie Molinaars, Breda, Holland . 1995 Retrospective 1974 - 1994, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool . 1995 - 97 Galerie Clivages, Paris . 1995 - 99 Annandale Galleries, Sydney, Australia . Djanogly Gallery, University of Nottingham, retrospective . 1998 Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, retrospective . Purdy Hicks Gallery, London . Galerie le Triangle Bleu, Stavelot, Belgium . 2000 Galerie Vidal-Saint Phalle, Paris . 2002 Archeus Fine Art, London

Selected Mixed Exhibitions
1967 Art in a City, ICA, London . 1971 Spectrum North, Arts Council of GB tour-Leeds City Art Gallery/Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle . Manchester City Art Gallery . 1971/72 Welsh Arts Council Tour . 1973 Eisteddfod Festival, Wales (prize-winner) . 1974 - 85 John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 9 (prize-winner), 10, 13, 14 . 1977 Real Life, Peter Moores Project 4, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Arts Council Collection . 1976/77/82 Hayward Gallery, London . 1979 Recent Purchases, University of Liverpool, Senate House . 1981 Cleveland International Drawing Biennale . 1983 Tolly Cobbold 4th National Exhibition, Barbican Art Gallery, London . 1984 Capital Painting, Barbican Gallery, London . 1984/99/00 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London . 1988 Lefevre Gallery, London . 1989 Salute to Turner, Agnews Fine Art, London . 1990-91 Forces of Nature, Manchester City Art Gallery . 1994 Jerwood Prize Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh and the Royal Academy, London . 1995 Harewood House, Yorkshire . 1997 Florence Trust, London . 1998 Cairns Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales, (touring) . Annandale Galleries, Sydney . Art Fairs, Berlin, Cologne . 2001 Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing . 2002 Royal Cambrian Academy

Collections
British Museum . Arts Council of Great Britain . Welsh Arts Council . Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool . Ulster Museum, Belfast . The Leicester Collection . London Borough of Camden . University of Liverpool . Borough of Milton Keynes . John Moores . D.G. Bank . Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport . Granada Television . Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf . Contemporary Arts Society . Deutsche Bank . Unilever . Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo, Polanco, Mexico . Riggs Bank AG London . Royal Academy, London