Neil Shawcross , RHA, HRUA(born 15 March 1940) is an artist born in

Kearsley Kearsley ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. The population at the 2011 census was 14,212. Historically part of Lancashire, it lies northwest of Manchester, southwest of Bury and south of Bolt ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England, and resident in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

since 1962. Primarily a

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

painter, his subjects have included Nobel prize winning poet

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

, novelist

Francis Stuart Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart (29 April 19022 February 2000) was an Irish writer. He was awarded one of the highest artistic accolades in Ireland, being elected a Saoi of Aosdána, before his death in 2000. His years in Nazi Germany led to a g ...

(for the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasure ...

), former

Lord Mayor of Belfast The Lord Mayor of Belfast is the leader and chairperson of Belfast City Council, elected annually from and by the City's 60 councillors. The Lord Mayor also serves as the representative of the city of Belfast, welcoming guests from across the Un ...

David Cook (for Belfast City Council), footballer Derek Dougan and fellow artists

Colin Middleton Colin Middleton (29 January 1910 – 23 December 1983) was a Northern Irish landscape artist, figure painter, and surrealist. Middleton's prolific output in an eclectic variety of modernist styles is characterised by an intense inner visio ...

and

Terry Frost Sir Terence Ernest Manitou Frost RA (13 October 1915 – 1 September 2003) was a British abstract artist, who worked in Newlyn, Cornwall. Frost was renowned for his use of the Cornish light, colour and shape to start a new art movement in ...

. He also paints the figure and still life, taking a self-consciously childlike approach to composition and colour. His work also includes

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

, and he has designed

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

for the

and St. Colman's Church,

Lambeg, County Antrim Lambeg (historically ''Lanbeg'', ) is a small village and civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Located between Belfast and Lisburn, it was once a small rural village, but is now within the Greater Belfast conurbation. Lambeg is al ...

. He lives in

Hillsborough, County Down Royal Hillsborough (Irish: ''Cromghlinn'', meaning 'Crooked Glen' Patrick McKay, ''A Dictionary of Ulster Place-Names'', p. 81. The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast, 1999.), more commonly known simply as ...

Education and early life

Shawcross studied at Bolton College of Art from 1955 to 1958, and Lancaster College of Art from 1958 to 1960, before moving to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

in 1962 to take up a part-time lecturer's post at the

Belfast College of Art The Belfast School of Art, is a School in thUlster University Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciencesand is physically located at the Belfast campus. Following the results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 Ulster is ranked within ...

, becoming full-time in 1968. He continued to lecture there until his retirement in 2004. The academic career of Shawcross includes a residency at

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is a residential artist community in Amherst, Virginia, USA. Since 1971, VCCA has offered residencies of varying lengths with flexible scheduling for international artists, writers, and composers at ...

in 1987, a residency at Vermont Studio Center in 1991, and a visiting assistant professorship at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

in 1993. Shawcross is a Patron of the charity YouthAction Northern Ireland.

Awards

He was elected an Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art in 1975, and was made a full Academician in 1977. He won the Academy's Conor Award in 1975, its gold medal in 1978, 1982, 1987, 1994, 1997 and 2001, and its James Adam Prize in 1998. Neil Shawcross is also a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). He was awarded the Gallaher Portrait Prize in 1966. Queen's University Belfast conferred an honorary doctorate upon Shawcross in 2007 (Duniv). Shawcross was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to arts in Northern Ireland.

Exhibitions

He has exhibited nationally, with one-man shows in London,

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, Dublin and Belfast, and internationally in Hong Kong and the United States, and his work is found in many private and corporate collections. · 1962 Queen's University, Belfast· 1963 Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester· 1964 Queen's University, Belfast· 1965 New Gallery, Belfast· 1966 Royal Watercolour Society Gallery, London · 1968 New Gallery, Belfast · 1970 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast · 1970 Octagon Theatre, Belfast · 1972 Octagon Gallery, Belfast · 1974 Neptune Gallery, Dublin · 1974 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast · 1977 Bell Gallery, Belfast · 1979 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Dublin · 1982 Bell Gallery, Belfast · 1983 Peacock Gallery, Craigavon · 1983 Visitors' Centre, Enniskillen · 1983 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Dublin · 1984 Gordon Gallery, Derry · 1984 Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart · 1984 Grant Fine Art, Newcastle · 1985 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Dublin · 1986 Art and Research Exchange, Belfast · 1987 Gordon Gallery, Derry · 1988 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Dublin · 1990 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast · 1990 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Dublin · 1990 Clifford Street Fine Art, London · 1992 Industrial Development Board Office, London · 1993 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast · 1998 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast · 2000 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin · 2001 Island Arts Centre, Lisburn · 2001 Cavanacor Gallery, Donegal · 2002 Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast · 2003 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin · 2005 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin · 2007 Pigyard Gallery, Wexford In 2010, the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, hosted a private collection of the works of Neil Shawcross. In 2015, Shawcross exhibited a collection of six foot tall book covers inspired by original Penguin paperbacks at the

National Opera House The National Opera House, formerly the Wexford Opera House, is a theatre in Wexford, Ireland. It was officially opened on 5 September 2008 in a ceremony with An Taoiseach Brian Cowen, followed by a live broadcast of RTÉ's '' The Late Late S ...

in Wexford, Ireland. In 2018, Shawross donated to Belfast City Council a collection of 36 paintings dedicated to 'Writers of Belfast' in a show of appreciation to his adopted home city. A major retrospective of Shawcross' works were exhibited at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio, Banbridge, in the same year.

Works

*''Table Top Still Life'' (1990), Mixed media, Arts Council of Northern Ireland collection

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shawcross, Neil 20th-century British painters British male painters 21st-century British painters Artists from Northern Ireland Living people People from Kearsley 1940 births Members of the Order of the British Empire Members of the Royal Ulster Academy 20th-century British male artists 21st-century British male artists