Patrick Procktor
Patrick Procktor RA (12 March 1936 – 29 August 2003) was a British painter and printmaker.[1]
Early life
Patrick Procktor was born in Dublin, the younger son of an oil company accountant, but moved to London when his father died in 1940. From the age of 10, he attended Highgate School – where his teachers included landscape painter Kyffin Williams – intending to read classics at university. However, his mother's income was insufficient to fund his further education and after a period working with a north London builders' merchants 18-year-old Procktor was conscripted into the Royal Navy where, during his National Service, he learned to speak Russian.[1]
Professional artist
Subsequently, while working as a Russian interpreter with the British Council, Procktor began to paint and draw in his spare time, and was accepted by the Slade School of Fine Art in 1958. There he was influenced by artists including William Coldstream and Keith Vaughan, developing a dark, figurative painting style.
In 1962 he became a professional artist and had his first show at
Beginning in 1964, Procktor, Vaughan, Robert Medley amongst others, took part in a drawing group at Procktor's home which became a "cross-generational gay network".[3]
Procktor's work, primarily in oils, acrylics and watercolour, drew on pop art influences, but was also influenced by his travels. He visited Italy, Greece, India, Egypt, China, and Japan, among other places), and once declared "the light in Egypt is violet, in China daffodil, in Venice opalescent".[4] He was also adept at print-making, producing a sequence to illustrate a new 1976 edition of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.[2] In 1984 he was commissioned to paint a reredos for the St John the Baptist's Chapel in Chichester Cathedral. His model for the various figures of St John was his friend the photographer David Gwinnutt.[5][6]
Procktor's painting The Guardian Readers was used as the cover art for Elton John's 1976 album, Blue Moves.
Procktor was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1996 and died seven years later, aged 67.[7][6]
Personal life
Procktor lived in Manchester Street,
Despite his homosexual leanings, in 1973 Procktor married a widow, neighbour and restaurateur Kirsten Benson. She sold her restaurant (Odin's) to
An obituary in The Independent said of his death:
The annual dinner at the Royal Academy will be much duller for his anarchic absence, that tapering six-foot-six frame, topped by a fez, seemingly on the verge of imminent collapse as it swayed and teetered above the throng. And Marylebone has never been the same since the fire in 1999 that destroyed his flat and drove him from a neighbourhood he had graced with his hats and trailing scarves, velvet coats and carpet slippers for the last 40 years.[4]
References
- ^ a b McNay, Michael (3 September 2003). "Patrick Procktor: Flamboyant painter with an exquisite sense of colour and design". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
- ^ a b Patrick Procktor in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection
- OCLC 1151947029.)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ a b John McEwen, Patrick Procktor, Painter who personified the Sixties, The Independent, 4 September 2003, accessed 27 November 2020
- ISBN 978-1-906509-09-5.
- ^ ISBN 978-1906509095)
- ISBN 978-1859283226.
- ^ "Patrick Procktor, Irish (1936 - 2003)". RoGallery. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
External links
- 18 artworks by or after Patrick Procktor at the Art UK site
- A Group of Polish Pilots at The Royal Air Force Museum London.
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