Derek Balmer PPRWA (born 28 December 1934) is a British artist and photographer, Past President of the

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 program ...

(2001–10) and Pro-Chancellor of the

University of the West of England The University of the West of England (also known as UWE Bristol) is a public research university, located in and around Bristol, England. The institution was know as the Bristol Polytechnic in 1970; it received university status in 1992 and ...

(2001–10) to Chancellor Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. He received an Honorary Doctorate (for Art) from the University of the West of England in 2001.

Early life

Balmer was born in London in 1934 although his professional art education began in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

when he was admitted, aged 15 in 1950, to the West of England College of Art, then situated within the Royal West of England Academy, an institution of which he was later to become President. Offered a place at the

Slade School of 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 ...

in London at 17, he turned it down as his family could not afford the expense. Instead he became apprenticed to a photo-litho firm in Bristol, working as a photographer. Art studies at the College continued via evening classes and at 21, he had a painting accepted for exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy where he has exhibited every year since. Group and solo shows followed at the Finbarrus Gallery in Bath (1958/9). Balmer established himself as an independent photographer and friendships with

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

and film-maker

John Boorman Sir John Boorman (; born 18 January 1933) is a British film director, best known for feature films such as ''Point Blank'' (1967), ''Hell in the Pacific'' (1968), ''Deliverance'' (1972), ''Zardoz'' (1974), '' Exorcist II: The Heretic'' (1977), ...

among others, drew him into the active theatre scene in Bristol in the 60s that centred round the

Bristol Old Vic Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a fin ...

under

Sir Tyrone Guthrie Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971) was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his ...

. Balmer was appointed official photographer to the company in 1961, a position he held for the next 28 years. At the same time, he was invited to write art criticism for the

Western Daily Press The ''Western Daily Press'' is a regional newspaper covering parts of South West England, mainly Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset as well as the metropolitan areas of Bath and North East Somerset and the Bristol area. It is published Mon ...

, a position he held for seven years from 1961-1968 until the column closed. With the

Arnolfini Gallery Arnolfini is an international arts centre and gallery in Bristol, England. It has a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, artist's performance, music and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and cinema. There is also a ...

opening in 1961 and the Bristol City Art Gallery mounting shows, Balmer found himself reviewing artists such as

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 ...

Keith Vaughan John Keith Vaughan (23 August 1912 – 4 November 1977), was a British painter. Biography Born at Selsey in West Sussex, Vaughan attended Christ's Hospital school. He worked in an advertising agency until the World War II, when as an intending ...

, Joseph Herman and Bryan Winter among others.

Career

Despite the demands of his professional photographic career, Balmer continued to paint, travelling widely in Southern Europe to look at painting, architecture and sculpture. His work, initially influenced by

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...

, soon developed a strongly colouristic, expressive quality, his largely landscape-inspired subjects of the 1960s and 1970s being treated in an increasingly semi-abstract manner. His influences drew on a wide range of sources – Pierre Bonnard, Peter Lanyon, John Hoyland and American abstract expressionists like Gorky and de Kooning among others. By the time he had his first solo show at the Arnolfini Gallery in 1968, he had however arrived at an intensely personal style of his own, one that began to attract notice from the London critics, Neville Wallis of

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

predicting that "one day Balmer will set Bond Street on fire". During the 1970s, Balmer sought to make a success of his photographic business and support his young family, largely withdrawing from exhibiting his work other than at the Royal West of England Academy where he had become an Associate member in 1955. By the 1980s, his work had gained in expressive richness and confidence and Balmer started putting his work into a wider variety of exhibitions. By the early 1990s, having given up his photographic business, he became involved in the Royal West of England Academy affairs, in 1993 being elected to the Academy Council, then becoming Academicians’ Chairman and President in 2001. He inaugurated a year-round exhibition programme with solo shows being given to artists as distinguished as Richard Long, Bert Irvin, Gillian Ayres and Maurice Cockrill. New gallery spaces were opened, a Friends’ organization set up and the institution’s important collection of art was at last properly conserved and curated. Balmer had seen the Academy through a major shift in its affairs and he retired from the position in 2009. A major retrospective of his work at the Academy in 2007 entitled 'President's Eye' was accompanied by an almost yearly sequence of exhibitions at private galleries in the UK and Holland over the decade and in the years since his retirement from the presidency, he has been showing regularly at the Catto Gallery, London. The Theatre Royal/

are celebrating their 250th anniversary with a major exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy which includes a gallery full of his theatre photographs (a 27-year retrospective), closing at the end of January 2016.

Personal life

Derek Balmer is married to Elizabeth and has two children.

Publications

''Derek Balmer: A Singular Vision'' by Derek Balmer, Andrew Lambirth, ACH Smith – Samsom & Company 2012 (a memoir by the artist)

Recent Exhibitions

*2016: 27 year Retrospective, The Theatre Royal/Bristol Old Vic *2015: Solo Exhibition, Bath Contemporary, Bath *2014: Solo Exhibition, Catto Gallery, London *2014: Group Exhibition, Hilton Fine Art, Bath Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden *2012: Solo Exhibition, Catto Gallery, London *2011: Solo Exhibition, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden *2010: Joint Exhibition, Catto Gallery, London *2010: Group Exhibition, Browse and Darby, London, Critic’s choice (Andrew Lambirth, The Spectator) and Summer Show *2008: Solo Exhibition, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden *2007: Solo Exhibition, 'Presidents Eye' major retrospective, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol *2006: Group Exhibition, 'Discerning Eye' Mall Galleries, London. Invited Artist (Nicholas Usherwood) *2006: Group Exhibition, Cube Gallery, Bristol *2005: Solo Exhibition, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden *2005: Solo Exhibition, Six Chapel Row, Bath with Anthony Hepworth Fine Art *2005-10: Group Exhibition, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition *2004: Group Exhibition, 'Western Approaches' Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden *2004: Group Exhibition, Six Chapel Row, Bath *2003: Group Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, New Gallery *2002: Solo Exhibition, Smelik and Stokking Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland *1997, 2004: Solo Exhibition, Gisela van Beers Gallery, London *1996, 1998, 2000: Solo Exhibition, Smelik and Stokking Gallery, The Hague, Holland *Annually since 1956: Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Balmer, Derek 1934 births Living people 20th-century British photographers 21st-century British photographers Artists from Bristol Artists from London English male painters Photographers from Bristol