Vaughan Grylls is a British artist, photographer, and author. Known for his fine art photography and sculptures, Grylls first received recognition for his 1960s pun-sculptures and, later, for his 1980s photography and panoramic photo collages. Grylls was the director of

Kent Institute of Art & Design The Kent Institute of Art & Design (KIAD, often ) was an art school based across three campuses in the county of Kent, in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone Co ...

before co-founding the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone & Rochester. He has work in various public collections, including the National Library of Wales and

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Initially trained as a sculptor, Grylls began creating photo collages in 1977. Some of his notable panoramic works include The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem (1979), Site of the Assassination of JFK (1980), and Britain Through the Looking Glass (1984). Additionally, Grylls has authored seven books in the Then and Now series: ''Oxford Then and Now'' (2009), ''Cambridge Then and Now'' (2011), ''Singapore Then and Now'' (2016) ''Hong Kong Then and Now'' (2016) ''Shanghai Then and Now'' (2017), ''The Old West Then and Now'' (2019), ''London Then and Now'' (2020) and was photographer for ''Hollywood Then and Now'' (2013).

Early life and education

Vaughan Grylls was born 10 December 1943 in

Newark-on-Trent Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road bypasses th ...

. From 1963 onwards, Grylls attended art schools at

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...

Goldsmiths A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold. In German, the Goldsmith family name is written Goldschmidt. Goldsmith may also refer to: Places * Goldsmith, Indiana, United States * Goldsmith, New York, United States, a h ...

, and 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 ...

Career

Pun-sculptures

At Goldsmiths College in 1968, Grylls produced an exhibition of his first photographically based pun-sculptures, each made from cardboard and called collectively '

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...

's Palace of Pun.' He took this with him to the Slade School of Fine Art and continued to make more pun-sculptures. His work was noticed at his final show at the Slade in 1970 by

Jasia Reichardt Jasia Reichardt (born 1933) is a British art critic, curator, art gallery director, teacher and prolific writer, specialist in the emergence of computer art. In 1968 she was curator of the landmark ''Cybernetic Serendipity'' exhibition at London's ...

, art critic and assistant director of the ICA. His first London exhibition was held at the ICA in October 1970 as one room in an exhibition entitled 'Ten Sitting Rooms.' Grylls' pun-sculpture work was also shown at an alternative exhibition space called The Gallery. The Gallery was opened in Lisson St, London in 1972 by fellow Slade graduate Nicholas Wegner. Wegner invited Grylls to show at The Gallery. The work Grylls exhibited in 1973 entitled 'An Indo-Chinese Punsculpture' was a large photo-mural commenting on the signing of the so-called

Paris Peace Treaty The Paris Peace Treaties (french: Traités de Paris) were signed on 10 February 1947 following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers (princi ...

. Wegner and Grylls then collaborated in an artistic partnership, inspired in part by

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

, from 1973 to 1975. Wegner closed The Gallery in 1978.

Photography

From 1977, Grylls’ style developed into works largely inspired by international news and political events. He used photographic montage techniques to create a collection of images pinned together to produce one large image. In 1977, he travelled to Istanbul and used a telephoto lens to produce his first panoramic photo-collage, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. It was exhibited in 1978 at the

Whitechapel Art Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the ...

in London. His next photo-collage exhibition was in 1979 called The Wailing (Western) Wall, Jerusalem and in Flanders Fields. Grylls said that his overtly political art tried, in the case of The Wailing (Western) Wall, Jerusalem, to "examine a cultural and religious icon that has had a far-reaching influence on political events today." In 1980, Grylls created panoramic collages of the sites where President John F. Kennedy on Elm Street and Lord Mountbatten in Donegal Bay were murdered. William Feaver of The Observer referred to Grylls' work as "mixed-media surveys, combining epic scale and humdrum particulars." In 1984, Grylls' 'Britain Through the Looking Glass', a twenty-eight by eight-foot work of colour Xerox photographs that were taken at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in London in the "Egyptian Mummy room" was exhibited at the Atlantis Gallery in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Also, in the same exhibition, were two equally large panoramas, one based on the Greenwich Meridian, the other on Wembley Stadium.

Education

In 1984, Grylls was appointed professor of photography and video at

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

, Massachusetts. In 1989, Grylls returned to England to become Head of Art & Design at Wolverhampton Polytechnic (later known as the

University of Wolverhampton The University of Wolverhampton is a public university located on four campuses across the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in England. The roots of the university lie in the Wolverhampton Tradesmen's and Mechanics' Institute founde ...

). In 1996, he became director of the

. In 2003, Grylls proposed creating a new university of more than 6,000 students studying art, design, and architecture by merging the Kent Institute with the Surrey Institute of Art & Design to prevent these free-standing art colleges becoming absorbed into their local universities. The merged institution was called the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone & Rochester (since 2009 the

University for the Creative Arts The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in the south of England. It was formed in 2005 as University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester when the Kent Ins ...

). Grylls as founding Chief Executive of the merged institution resigned soon afterwards, announcing that he intended to return full-time to his own work."Professor going back to the drawing board." ''Kentish Gazette,'' 26 October 2005. In 2018, Bitter Lemon Press published Grylls' autobiographical book, ''Have You Come Far? A Life in Interviews''.

Notes

External links

Vaughan Grylls
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grylls, Vaughan 1943 births Living people English artists British conceptual artists Academics of the University of Wolverhampton Alumni of the University of Wolverhampton Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of University College London