Michael James Andrews (30 October 1928 – 19 July 1995) was a British painter.

Life and work

Michael Andrews was born in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, England, the second child of Thomas Victor Andrews and his wife Gertrude Emma Green. During his last year at school Andrews attended Saturday morning classes at the

Norwich School of Art Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) is a public university in Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom that specialises in art, design and media. It was founded as Norwich School of Design in 1845 and has a long history of arts education. It gained ful ...

where he studied painting in oils with

Leslie Davenport Frank William Leslie Davenport ARCA (21 April 1905–28 February 1973) was a 20th-century British artist and teacher and a member of the Norwich Twenty Group of painters. Born in Harrow, London, Harrow the son of Rowland Davenport and Mary E ...

. He completed his

National service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

between 1947 and 1949, nineteen months of which was spent in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. From 1949 to 1953 he studied at the

Slade School of Fine 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 ...

under

William Coldstream Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher. Biography Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of co ...

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...

, William Townsend and

Lawrence Gowing Sir Lawrence Burnett Gowing (21 April 1918 – 5 February 1991) was an English artist, writer, curator and teacher. Initially recognised as a portrait and landscape painter, he quickly rose to prominence as an art educator, writer, and eventuall ...

. Fellow students and friends there included

Victor Willing Victor Arthur James Willing (15 January 1928 – 1 June 1988) was a British painter, noted for his original nude studies. He was a friend and colleague of many notable artists, including Elisabeth Frink, Michael Andrews and Francis Bacon. He ...

, Keith Sutton, Diana Cumming,

Euan Uglow Euan Ernest Richard Uglow (10 March 1932 – 31 August 2000) was a British painter. He is best known for his nude and still life paintings, such as ''German Girl'' and ''Skull''. Biography Euan Uglow was born in 1932 in London. As a child, he l ...

and Craigie Aitchison. In 1953 he spent six months in Italy at the British School at Rome after receiving a Rome Scholarship in Painting. From 1958 he taught at the Slade and

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

. He held a fellowship at the

Digswell Arts Trust Digswell Arts Trust was the brainchild of Henry Morris, a pioneering educationalist. Through his enthusiasm, dedication and influence he persuaded the Government and the Welwyn Garden City Development Corporation to establish a Trust for professio ...

between February 1958 and June 1960, in that period he shared a studio with

Patrick Swift Patrick may refer to: * Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name * Patrick (surname), list of people with this name People * Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint *Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...

. In 1959 his painting ''A Man Who Suddenly Fell Over'' was acquired by the

Tate Gallery 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 the 1960s he painted works showing parties; later, the "Lights" series presented views from the air. Andrews was much impressed by a visit to

Ayers Rock Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the Northern Territory, southwest of Alice Springs. ...

in 1983, but the works he produced toward the end of his life are of scenes from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and London. In 1978 he moved to the village of Geldeston on the Norfolk/Suffolk border before moving to the village of

Saxlingham Nethergate Saxlingham Nethergate is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England, about south of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of and the 2001 Census recorded a population of 676 in 276 households, the population increasing to 688 at the 2011 ...

in 1981 in his home county of

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. He was a member of the

Norwich Twenty Group The Norwich Twenty Group (N20G) is a group of artists in Norfolk, England. Stimulated by contemporary art movements, the original group of 14 artists, met in November 1944, they intended to raise standards of local professional art to something ...

. He painted ''Sax AD 832'' in 1982 to celebrate 1,150 years of the village's history. The painting was auctioned at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

London on 20 June 2007 and was sold for £692,000. Major exhibitions of Andrews' works were held by the Arts Council in 1981 and

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

in 2001. During 1988 he served on the Board of Trustees of The National Gallery in London, but he found travelling up from Norfolk for the meetings irksome and he did not complete his full term. He returned to London in 1992. In 1994 he underwent an operation for cancer before dying in London on 19 July 1995. A memorial service attended by many of his Soho and Slade friends was held at St. Mary's Church, Battersea . He is buried in

Perthshire Perthshire (locally: ; gd, Siorrachd Pheairt), officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, ...

. Michael Andrews played a deaf-mute in

Lorenza Mazzetti Lorenza Mazzetti (26 July 1927 – 4 January 2020) was an Italian film director, novelist, photographer and painter. Early life Mazzetti was born in Florence. Her mother, Olga Liberati, died shortly after giving birth to Lorenza and her twi ...

Free Cinema Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson (but he later disdained the ...

film ''

Together ''ToGetHer'' (, aka Superstar Express) is a 2009 Taiwanese drama starring Jiro Wang of Fahrenheit, Rainie Yang and George Hu. It was produced by Comic International Productions ( 可米國際影視事業股份有限公司) and directed by Linzi ...

'', alongside

Eduardo Paolozzi Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March ...

(1955).

References

Bibliography

*Andrews, Michael, and

William Feaver William Feaver (born 1 December 1942) is a British art critic, curator, artist and lecturer. From 1975–1998 he was the chief art critic of the Observer, and from 1994 a visiting professor at Nottingham Trent University. His book ''The Pitmen P ...

, eds. ''Lights: Michael Andrews.'' Museo Thyssen Bornemisza and The British Council, 2000. *Calvocoressi, Richard. ''Michael Andrews: The Scottish Paintings.'' Edinburgh: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1991. *Feaver, William, and Paul Moorhouse. ''Michael Andrews.'' London: Tate, 2001. *Lampert, Catherine. ''Michael Andrews: The Delectable Mountain.'' London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1991. *''Michael Andrews.'' London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1981. *Peppiatt, Michael. ''A School of London: Six Figurative Painters: Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, R. B. Kitaj, Leon Kossoff.'' London: The British Council, 1987. *''Rock of Ages Cleft for Me: Recent Paintings.'' London: Anthony d'Offay Gallery, 1986. *Wilcox, Tim, et al. ''The Pursuit of the Real: British figurative painting from Sickert to Bacon''. London: Lund Humphries, 1990. *Wilson, Colin St. John. ''The Artist at Work: On the Working Methods of William Coldstream and Michael Andrews.'' Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1999. *Michael Andrews, "Notes and Preoccupations", ''X magazine'', Vol. 1, No. 2 (March 1960); ''An Anthology from X'', Oxford University Press ( 1988)

External links

Michael Andrews at the Tate

Michael Andrews on Digswell Arts Trust
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrews, Michael 1928 births 1995 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters British contemporary painters Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art People educated at the City of Norwich School Artists from Norwich English contemporary artists Royal Academicians Norwich Twenty Group 20th-century English male artists

Life and work

See also

References

Bibliography

External links