Bernard Cheese (20 January 1925 – 15 March 2013) was an English painter and printmaker, a fellow of the

Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), known until 1991 as the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, is a leading art institution based in London, England. The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, as it was originally styled, was ...

. His works are found in internationally important collections in the UK and US.

Early life

He was born in

Sydenham Sydenham may refer to: Places Australia * Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Sydenham railway station, Sydney * Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...

, London, in 1925. He studied at Beckenham School of Art and, following four years in the army, studied at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

from 1947, in London, where he studied alongside

Walter Hoyle Walter Hoyle (1922–2000) was an English artist, known for his prints, watercolours and illustration. He was a central figure in the Great Bardfield group of artists and a close associate of Edward Bawden. He taught at the Central School, Londo ...

and

Sheila Robinson Sheila Robinson may refer to: * Sheila Radley, a pseudonym of Sheila Robinson, British mystery novelist * Sheila Robinson (artist), a British artist * Sheila Robinson (publisher), a businesswoman and magazine founder {{Disambiguation} ...

, and his teachers included

Edward Bawden Edward Bawden, (10 March 1903 – 21 November 1989) was an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. Bawden taught at the Royal College of Art, where he had be ...

and

Edwin La Dell Thomas Edwin La Dell (7 January 1914 – 27 June 1970) was a British printmaker, lithographer, illustrator and painter active during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Life & career Edwin La Dell was the son of Thomas La Dell, a Sheffield-born ...

.Fry Art Gallery (2012). The Artists. In: ''Artists at the Fry: Art and design in the North West Essex Collection'' (pp. 39–40). Saffron Walden, Essex: The Fry Art Gallery.

Artistic career

For 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. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

, Cheese painted a mural on the

Shot Tower A shot tower is a tower designed for the production of small-diameter shot balls by free fall of molten lead, which is then caught in a water basin. The shot is primarily used for projectiles in shotguns, and for ballast, radiation shielding ...

and in 1953 was involved in La Dell's 'Coronation Suite', providing a

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

. This helped to launch his career. He taught printmaking at

St Martin's School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an art school, art college in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1854, initially under the aegis of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Saint Martin's beca ...

from 1950 to 1968, then at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

from 1970 to 1978, and

Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...

(1980–89). He designed posters for London Transport, with several commissions from 1951. He also did commissions for Guinness (an illustrated mathematics book), the BBC and P&O Cruises. In the 1950s he moved to the artists' community of

Great Bardfield Great Bardfield is a large village in the Braintree district of Essex, England. It is located approximately northwest of the town of Braintree, and approximately southeast of Saffron Walden. The village came to national attention during the ...

in Essex, which was also home to Bawden. He exhibited in Beijing (1956), Stockholm (1960), Washington DC (1962) and New York (1968). Other shows include "Bon Appétit!: lithographs and watercolours by Bernard Cheese" at Aberystwyth University in 2002. He became a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 1988.

Works

''A Fisherman's Story'' (1956) is owned by

Tate 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 U ...

in London. Other works are in the collections of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, the British

Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...

, the British

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in t ...

, the New York

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museums ...

, the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, 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 of ...

and

Aberystwyth University , mottoeng = A world without knowledge is no world at all , established = 1872 (as ''The University College of Wales'') , former_names = University of Wales, Aberystwyth , type = Public , endowment = ...

, which holds more than 100 of his works. In 2000, the

Fry Art Gallery The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. Recognised as an Accredited Museum by Arts Council England, it displays work by artists of national significance who lived or worked in North West Essex during the twentieth centu ...

(

Saffron Walden Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15, ...

) received thirty of his lithographs.

Personal life

In 1951 he married Sheila Robinson, an artist from Nottinghamshire. They divorced in 1968 and he married Brenda Latham Brown, a former student. His daughters Chloe Cheese (with Sheila), Joanna Cheese and Sarah Cheese are also artists.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheese, Bernard 1925 births 2013 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters 21st-century English male artists English printmakers People from Sydenham, London Painters from London Alumni of the Royal College of Art Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London Academics of the Central School of Art and Design 20th-century British printmakers People from Great Bardfield British Army personnel of World War II 20th-century English male artists