|
JAMES HYMAN GALLERY
Derrick Greaves (b.1927)
Please scroll down for further information. Derrick Greaves (b.1927) Man on Horse Signed, dated and inscribed 'Italy' beneath the image Charcoal on paper 42 x 53 cms (16½ x 20¾ inches) 1952 Greaves’s most celebrated paintings of the 1950s and their idiom owe much to his years of studying painting at the Royal College from 1948-52. Greaves was taught by Ruskin Spear and, to a lesser extent, by Carel Weight and John Minton, who would draw and paint alongside his students in the life room. Carel Weight was well respected as a serious, exhibiting painter and was helpful in practical ways, offering Greaves free stretchers he did not need. Soon Greaves adopted a way of painting, promoted by the college, ‘that showed you were serious’: ‘one could pick up a range of mannerisms from one’s tutors’ including John Minton’s ‘way with Modernism’, Rodrigo Moynihan’s ‘suave portraiture’ and Ruskin Spear’s ‘post-Sickertian dabbing and splodging’.4 But of all his teachers it was Minton who was of most interest. Greaves respected him principally as a draughtsman, a marvellous, fecund and fluent illustrator, and as a convivial and witty performer, but as a teacher Minton was almost monosyllabic. This was characteristic. Above all, teaching was by example and advice was not necessarily sought, expected or given. Please click here to contact us about this item, or if you wish to buy or sell a work by this artist. | ||||||||
