RAY ATKINS
A PAINTER’S ODYSSEY
ONE OF THE MAJOR ARTISTS OF HIS GENERATION
16 January – 8 February 2025
Private View Thursday 16 January 6 – 7:30
Join us for refreshments and a first view of A Painter’s Odyssey Ray Atkins solo show
Ray Atkins (b.1937) is – puzzlingly – one of the least well-known figurative painters of his generation. A contemporary of Auerbach and others in The London Group, Ray left London for teaching posts first at Reading University and then Falmouth College of Art. Now living in the French Pyrenees, he is still painting and is the subject of a recent book – ‘A Painter’s Odyssey’ by Peter Davies. Ray has local connections in that he was educated at Sevenoaks School and Bromley College of Art before studying at The Slade.
He works on a huge scale painting ‘en plein air’ and visitors to this exhibition will be stunned by his ability to communicate and delighted by the way his paintings literally jump off the wall and draw you into his subject matter.
“Formal grandeur is rare in art, it has nothing to do with size or vehemence. The slightest Rembrandt drawing has an underlying grandeur; Gwen John has it and so has – I think – Ray Atkins’ work” The late Frank Auerbach’s introduction to ‘A Painter’s Odyssey’.
Ray Atkins A Painters Odyssey Catalogue
Full catalogue of UK archive – Ray Atkins UK Catalogue
