Patrick Procktor: Stages E-catalogue

Patrick Procktor Stages

1

2

Patrick Procktor RA 1936–2003

2

Patrick Procktor Stages An exhibition curated by Ian Massey

RICHARDS PHOTO OF PATRICK

In the Manchester Street Bedroom 1994 Photographic collage © R J Selby

4

Foreword Richard Selby

It could be said that Patrick Procktor has become synonymous with the

Redfern Gallery. From his first sell-out show in 1963 he became one of Redfern’s star artists.

I had first seen this giant of a man in 1985 at the South London Art Gallery,

where he was presenting a prize to Camberwell Art students. I remember that he chose a promising student’s watercolour before sending a water jug flying across the room, much to everyone’s amusement (apart from the Head of Painting).

A few years later, after graduating from Camberwell, I joined the Redfern

Gallery. It wasn’t long before I met Patrick. I would often be sent to Manchester Street to collect paintings from Patrick’s studio and a friendship slowly began.

Patrick could be quite intimidating but was always generous. His sharp, wicked humour was legendary. He was remarkably quick-witted and could complete

The Times cryptic crossword in 7 minutes flat. Above all he was a naturally

gifted painter and draughtsman.

Through watching him work over the years he reignited my passion for watercolour, something I will always cherish.

We are thrilled to be showing Patrick Procktor again at the Redfern Gallery and

are grateful to Ian Massey for curating this exhibition. His writing and infectious enthusiasm has breathed new life into the appreciation of Procktor’s work. Ian has selected some paintings which have not been shown in the space since the 1960s, as well as some of the last dark haunting oils.

Patrick loved the space at 20 Cork Street and always referred to it as ‘the finest picture gallery in London’. His favourite parting line when leaving any of his Redfern exhibitions would be: ‘Thank you for hanging me.’

5

The Beach: Figures in Red and Black 1962 Oil on canvas 182.9 × 198.1 cm

6

Patrick Procktor: Stages Ian Massey

Patrick Procktor’s arrival on the London art scene came with the opening of his first show, held at The Redfern Gallery in May 1963. He had graduated from the

Slade School of Fine Art less than a year before and, with the exception of nine

student works, had, in a period of intense activity, produced the rest of the show’s

thirty-five oil paintings and thirty-three works on paper in the intervening months.

The 27-year-old now found himself heralded as a major new talent, his show

both critically lauded, and a near sell-out, with work acquired for both private and public collections. While thrilled with his success, Procktor also realised

its implications: for, aware that his work remained very much in transition, he understood the need to consolidate his position under the watchful eyes of

the critics. And so, driven by continued determination and ambition, during the

remaining years of the decade he went on to produce a succession of markedly inventive paintings, gradually arriving at the lightness of touch for which he was to become renowned.

Central to Patrick Procktor: Stages is a group of paintings made during those

years of experiment. Several are large in scale, and most have not been exhibited since they were first shown, soon after completion. The earliest is in fact a canvas included in the artist’s 1963 show. The Beach: Figures in Red and Black (1962)

[illus. p. 6], is based on memories of a trip to Italy and Greece in the summer of

1962, when Procktor was accompanied by his lover, fellow painter Michael Upton, and Upton’s girlfriend, in a short-lived ménage à trois. The painting’s figures

are set against panels of terracotta and black, in reference to the murals from

the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, which Procktor had admired during a visit

to the archaeological museum in Naples. The two standing figures represent a

self-portrait and Upton: the subsidiary ones are less readable; the top left might be bird, insect, or diver. Like the majority of the work in that first exhibition, the

vigorous application, with brush and palette knife, bears the residual influence

of David Bomberg, whose expressionistic paintings had greatly inspired Procktor during his time at the Slade. He had also looked closely at contemporary

abstraction, taking from it the formal geometries and devices useful to him.

Evident too in these paintings are stylistic echoes of the work of Keith Vaughan,

7

who taught Procktor at the Slade, along with something of the psychological

tension of Francis Bacon’s paintings; the latter is especially evident in the surreal dismembered nudes of Three Figures from Memory II (1964) [illus. front cover].

This work, along with The Black Set from the same year, were among four by Procktor included in ‘The New Generation: 1964’, at the Whitechapel Gallery,

London, in Spring 1964.1 The artist was one of twelve young painters in this survey

exhibition, selected by Whitechapel Director Bryan Robertson. The drama inherent in Procktor’s four paintings is amplified by their spatial ambiguity, a factor noted

by Robertson when writing of them in the exhibition catalogue:

Space has become a hall of mirrors, its planes fragmented, divided, reassembled in new permutations.2

A flamboyant six-foot-five dandy, Procktor was innately theatrical, a

characteristic that, along with great personal charisma, was already evident in

his teenage years as a pupil at Highgate School, where he performed in several

Dramatic Society productions. He later acted in plays during his National Service years with the Joint Services School for Linguists (where he became highly

proficient in the Russian language), and aspired to become an actor, before changing course to study art. In fact, the dynamics of space and light in his

paintings are not so far removed from those of the stage, for theatre continued to both fascinate and inspire him. One sees its influence in his work, where

theatrical artifice often finds a pictorial equivalence. It is made explicit in the

structure of The Black Set (1964) [illus. p. 9] – ‘a canvas with wings and a floor’ –

as the artist described it.3 There are two figures here, both strange, and partially overpainted in black. That on the right appears half-beast, satyr-like. The other,

clad in white, and masked in black, is tethered with red guy ropes, then repeated, much diminished in scale, and cast adrift in indeterminate darkness. In common with most of Procktor’s paintings of the early-to-mid Sixties, it is essentially

autobiographical, its meanings – often related to the artist’s queer relationships – obscured and codified.

Procktor’s paintings of the early 1960s are based on combinations of drawings, his own photographs, and imagery culled from memories and dreams. Then,

from around 1964, whilst sometimes continuing to make preparatory sketches,

he also began to paint directly from photographs found in books, newspapers, and magazines, many though not all printed in monochrome. Responding to

the effects of light and tone in this material, he developed a painterly shorthand, forming a vocabulary of marks and heightened invented colour. An example is

the canvas Ethnic Minority (1964) [illus. p. 11], a depiction of two American Indians

made in broad abstract gestures and areas of detailed pattern. Both figures are

painted in disparate and freewheeling styles, some areas appearing as though in

8

The Black Set 1964 Oil and collage on canvas 190.5 × 243.8 cm

Ethnic Minority 1964 Oil on canvas 152.4 × 101.6 cm

10

12

Shades 1967 Acrylic on canvas 213.5 × 275.2 cm

photographic negative and, as the art historian and curator Tommaso Pasquali

has noted: ‘the background pattern corrodes the profiles of the protagonists as in a solarized photo’.4

Based on the interior of ‘Le Duce’, a gay Mod club in Soho, Shades (1966) [illus.

p. 13] was first seen in Procktor’s third one-man show at The Redfern Gallery in

May 1967, where it was among several pictures with themes of transgressive or ambivalent sexuality. Others depicted leather boys: see, for instance the small

canvas Leather Boy (1966) [illus. p. 38]. There were also paintings of large groups of leather and denim clad men, like visitors from Tom of Finland’s homoerotic

drawings; and of The Rolling Stones, cocksure in drag. In Shades, with its raised

platform, and entry points from which stream shafts of intense light, the setting is once more that of a stage, its assembled cast that of men from the artist’s circle.

Among them are friends, such as fashion designer Ossie Clark, the writers David Plante and Nikos Stangos, theatre designer Peter Docherty, art historian Michael

Ricketts, and the artists Dale Chisman and Alex Warwick. There are also several of Procktor’s one-time lovers; artist/filmmaker Derek Jarman, artist Keith Milow, and

13

Ole Glaesner, a Danish tailor who had trained with Yves Saint-Laurent in Paris, and who for a time lived with Procktor at his home in Marylebone. All are delineated in brush-drawn line, some infilled with colour, others left solely in outline on unpainted canvas. The painting’s drama derives both from its stark lighting, and the ambiguity of what is taking place among its strangely fragmented figures.

Why, for instance, is there a ghostly figure on a stepladder, and why do others lie on the floor, one with his head in a book? It is as though separate scenes from a play, or indeed several plays, have been overlaid, in a conflation of time and action. As such, it suggests the intertwined networks and ceaseless social round of the London gay scene in the period, when, as George Melly has written: Soho at week-ends was full of Mods pilled up to the eyebrows, dressed like kaleidoscopes, and bouncing in and out of the cellar clubs like yoyos.5

Both Procktor and his gallery were doubtless aware of – and indeed welcomed – the controversy and publicity his queer-themed paintings were to generate: and in fact, the show led to a commission from the Royal Court Theatre, who asked him to draw a portrait of Joe Orton, for reproduction in the programme of a double bill of the queer playwright’s work staged that June. Now in the National Portrait Gallery, the ensuing drawing is a knowing collusion between artist and subject, in which Orton reclines on a divan, naked but for his socks.

The portrait soon acquired the anticipated notoriety. And, when considering the paintings Procktor exhibited in May 1967 within the context of the time, Shades, depicting as it does a thriving community on the cusp of liberation, now reads as a social document. For, little more than two months after it was shown, the Sexual Offences Act received Royal Assent. A landmark in queer history, the act decriminalised private homosexual acts between consenting adults over the age of twenty-one in England and Wales.

In analysing Procktor’s technical development, Shades’ acrylic washes can

be seen as a precursor to those of his watercolours, the medium in which he became the most authoritative exponent of his generation. He began to fully explore watercolour when holidaying in Europe in the summer of 1967, taking to it instinctively, and at first making portraits of friends: among them the artists David Hockney and Peter Schlesinger, and critic and museum director Mario Amaya. Then, in the following year there began what amounted to an obsessive outpouring; of watercolours, drawings and paintings on canvas, all of them portraits of one of Procktor’s great loves, the 22-year-old model and aspiring pop singer Gervase Griffiths. Of these, a pencil drawing and several watercolours feature in this exhibition, each a tender rendition of youthful beauty.

The watercolour Limerick Head (1968) [illus. p. 16] is near-forensic in its sensuous description of the surfaces of Griffiths’ lips, eyes, and eyelashes. There is also the

14

Where Are You 1969 Watercolour on paper 66.3 × 98.8 cm

watercolour still life of tulips, Where Are You? (1969) [illus. p. 15], its title spelt out

in petals, a paean to loss and bewilderment in the aftermath of their affair.

Procktor designed for the stage on five occasions during the 1960s. His first

commission was for a production of John Whiting’s play Saint’s Day, at Theatre

Royal, Stratford in 1965, for which he made a large mural decoration to serve

as a backcloth. Two ballet productions followed, both for the Western Theatre Ballet: Parade, for which Procktor designed a drop curtain and costumes; and a front-cloth for choreographer Jack Carter’s Cage of God, for the

same company. There were also two Royal Court Theatre productions in

1968: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which opened in late January, followed in

September by Total Eclipse, Christopher Hampton’s play about the relationship between the poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. For Twelfth Night,

Procktor attired the cast in contemporary clothing, with trousers by his friend

the menswear designer Michael Fish (a.k.a. Mr Fish), and hats by milliner Diane Logan. The actor Patrick Mower played Orsino in a gold suit from the Chelsea

15

Limerick Head 1968 Watercolour on paper 35.6 × 50.8 cm

16

Kama Dev (Ossie Clark) 1970 Watercolour on paper 35.2 × 25 cm

boutique ‘Hung On You’. Procktor made drawings of the eighteen members of

the cast in ink line; several were reproduced in the programme. He also made a

group of watercolour portraits during breaks in rehearsals; all are painted from life, with great immediacy. Seven are included here. In each, posture and clothing are

described in tonal washes applied with assured economy, with details confined to facial features and hair. In some, hands, socks, or jewellery are left unpainted as white shapes on the paper, adding to the sense of impromptu spontaneity.

Procktor was a prolific portraitist. His subjects include many figures from the 1960s and ‘70s counterculture of which he too was part: among them the musicians

Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Winwood; the actors Terence Stamp and Nicol Williamson; and the poet Thom Gunn. He also painted members of his

social circle, such as textile designer Celia Birtwell, and antiquarian Christopher

Gibbs. While many of these portraits tend towards naturalism, in others a brand

of mannerist distortion comes into play. Mario Amaya once described Procktor as: ‘the Parmigianino of Pop’, referring to the 16th century Italian Mannerist painter,

whose statuesque Madonna and Child with Angels (also known as Madonna with

the long neck) in the Uffizi is one of his best-known paintings.6 One is reminded too of another mannerist painter, El Greco, a favourite of Procktor, who had seen his

paintings at first-hand on a visit to Spain during his Slade years. One might also

add that, whilst Amaya’s rather tongue-in-cheek comparison with Parmigianino is apt, Procktor was never a Pop artist per se, for his sensibility was quite different to

that of contemporaries such as Peter Blake and Derek Boshier, whose work focuses more directly on the iconography of mass culture. In fact, Procktor’s mannerist

stylisation is evident in paintings such as Three Figures from Memory II and then

continues more noticeably in work that results from direct observation of the

subject. A key example is the 1972 portrait of his close friend the actor Jill Bennett,

in which, although the proportions of head and torso appear naturalistic, her limbs are elongated to the nth degree. Elsewhere, facial distortion appears both close

to caricature and psychologically perceptive, as in Kama Dev (1970) [illus. p. 17], a portrayal of Ossie Clark, ironically titled after the name of the Hindu god of desire.

This is one of many works by Procktor employing pattern, often based on Indian or Moorish decorative mosaics. It is also found in the background of the portrait of film-maker Seton Bailey (1977) [illus. p. 22], in the vanitas still life Viennese

Woman’s Skull (1978) [illus. p. 23], and in Dubai (1995) [illus. p. 73], where the

geometric pattern is that of Procktor’s sitting room wallpaper, printed to his own

design. Dubai – its title apparently a pun on ‘do you buy?’ – is but one example of

Procktor’s inclusion of a picture within a picture, in this case a framed painting set behind a vase of flowers. He also employed mirrors, and reflective surfaces, as in

the sensitive watercolour Self Portrait with Nicky in Hollywood (1983) [illus. p. 19], in

which he and his young son are shown reflected in a window or screen beneath the Californian sun.

18

Self Portrait with Nicky in Hollywood 1983 Watercolour on paper 59.8 × 45.8 cm

Following the breakdown of his relationship with Griffiths, on New Year’s Day 1970, Procktor set out on what he hoped would prove a restorative trip to

India. He was there for two-and-a-half-months, returning to London with 86 watercolours, mostly of landscape and architectural subjects. Some

of these watercolours then formed the basis for paintings on canvas, as well as a suite of seven aquatints. Two of the canvases are seen here.

Both are poetic evocations of atmospheric light, in which the artist’s use of watercolour has undoubtedly informed his approach to oils. The scene set before us in the immensely subtle Waxy Bells (1970) [illus. p. 20] appears

as though evaporating in hazy, bleached light, the carmine-hued flowers

of its title hovering in mid-air. Painted on pale beige canvas, it is an essay

in tonal restraint, most of its heavily dilute pigment applied with deceptive

nonchalance. In contrast, and very different in treatment, Rain Paint (1970)

[illus. p. 21] is a scene of a garden in torrential rain, seen from beneath the

20

above

Rain Paint 1970 Oil on canvas 102 × 122 cm left

Waxy Bells 1970 Oil on canvas 102 × 122 cm

Seton Bailey 1977 Oil and pastel on canvas 53.5 × 38 cm

22

Viennese Woman's Skull 1978 Oil on canvas 34 × 24.2 cm

shelter of a hotel’s columned terrace, with rain bouncing on the artist’s palette on the ledge before him. It centres mainly on blues and green, applied quite

thinly, sometimes wet-on-wet over a layer of white, which then illuminates and intensifies, like the white of watercolour paper.

Procktor was a seasoned traveller, forming whole exhibitions from work that

resulted from his journeys, much of it topographic. He painted during frequent trips to Italy, where he became esteemed and collected, with exhibitions in

Bologna, Venice, Verona and Vicenza. Early in 1980 he was granted a permit to travel in China, the first European artist to do so since the Cultural Revolution.

His two-month visit resulted later that year in the Redfern Gallery exhibition A

Chinese Journey. Then, in the autumn of 1984 Procktor spent a month in Egypt,

where he again made a substantial group of watercolours and some small oils, producing larger canvases on his return to London. In the spectacular setting of The Second Court of Amenophis III (1985) [illus. pp. 26-27], archaeological

remains are set against an expanse of pink-inflected sky, drama enhanced

by deep foreground shadows. In contrast, The Nile at Edfu (1985) [illus. p. 69], a

landscape of trees, shrubs, mountains and sky, mirrored in the placid blue of the river, is a work of poised understatement, both in its orchestration of scale and

perspective, and in the subtle deployment of metallics within a relatively limited palette. Both paintings are examples of the artist’s prowess as a colourist, and of his ability to pitch hue and tone in evoking light, space and volume. In this,

one can place Procktor in the same tradition as Sickert, a master of tonal colour whose work was a source of great inspiration to him.

In contrast with the comparative restraint of the Egyptian paintings, the more

vigorous application of Procktor’s earlier work resurfaced at times throughout his career; in the portrait of Ole Glaesner (1975) [illus. p. 63] for instance, all or most of it painted from life. It then appears with renewed force in the mid-1990s, in

what the writer John McEwen has described as: ‘[the] wildly expressionistic late

oil paintings.’7 And indeed, these late paintings are closer to Neo-Expressionism than the subtleties of the English tradition with which one associates much

of Procktor’s work. An example is Moscow University (1994) [illus. p. 25], a self-

portrait as a young man, which refers back to Procktor’s visits to Russia after

completion of his National Service, where he acted as an interpreter for British

trade delegations. Though never a Party member, he was at that time an ardent Communist, and here, hands thrust in the pockets of his gabardine overcoat,

his ghostly white face looms back from the ideology of youth. Painted in broad, unmanicured gestures on coarsely woven unprimed canvas, with playful

additions of collage and small objects, it shows an artist circumventing his

hard-won facility, striving instead for something urgent and new. Many of these late period works centre on the use of pure black, both painted, and drawn

24

Moscow University 1994 Oil and collage on canvas 160 × 80.5 cm

The Second Court of Amenophis III 1985 Oil on canvas 114.5 × 153 cm

26

St John on Patmos 1999 Oil and charcoal on canvas 101.5 × 76.2 cm

28

directly onto the canvas in charcoal, as in St John on Patmos (1999) [illus. p. 29],

the second of two canvases based on the head and shoulders of the saint in

Velasquez’s Saint John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos (1618-19) in the

National Gallery, London. The first, broadly painted in blues, greys, and acidic

yellows and greens, dates from 1964, and is closer to a self-portrait than to that of the Velasquez. The later canvas, more obviously based on a reproduction of the source painting, and notably more reined-in than Moscow University, is a

graphic rendering in black, white and grey, most of it modelled in charcoal line and wash.

Looking back on her friendship with Procktor, his Venetian gallerist Gabriella Cardazzo perceptively described:

The ironic detachment [that] always saved him from an excess of romanticism.8

And this sense of detachment is inseparable from the underlying strain of poetry in Procktor, which finds its apogee in one of his final works, a freely painted

untitled landscape from 2002. By now severely alcoholic and in physical decline,

he must have known that he probably had little time left, and this painting reads as an elegiac swansong. Made on unprimed canvas in oil and charcoal, black again predominates, with pale greens, greys, and whites, the latter mostly -

that of the canvas itself. It is a nocturnal landscape of shadows, with trees and undergrowth set against a sky illuminated by a pockmarked full moon, and in

which soars an ambiguous creature: a bird, or maybe an angel, or spirit. In the foreground, a silhouetted journeyman – apparently based on Saint Jerome,

though surely also a self-portrait – strides forth, dwarfed beneath trees and sky.

For Christana Evans

Endnotes 1 2

3 4 5 6

7 8

30

Tommaso Pasquali, A Portrait of the Artist in an Italian Landscape, in ‘Patrick Procktor: A View From a Window’, Palazzo Bentivoglio/CURA Books, Rome, 2023,p.41.

The other artists included in The New Generation: 1964 were Derek Boshier, Patrick Caulfield, Anthony Donaldson, David Hockney, John Hoyland, Paul Huxley, Allen Jones, Peter Phillips, Bridget Riley, Michael Vaughan and Brett Whiteley. The quote by Robertson appears on p.76 of the exhibition catalogue.

Patrick Procktor, Self-Portrait, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991, p.75.

Tommaso Pasquali, A Portrait of the Artist in an Italian Landscape, in ‘Patrick Procktor: A View From a Window’, Palazzo Bentivoglio/CURA Books, Rome, 2023,p.41.

George Melly, Revolt into Style, Oxford University Press, 1989, paperback edition, p.151.

According to Procktor’s autobiography, Amaya described him as ‘the Parmigianino of Pop’, in an article for the Financial Times. See Patrick Procktor, Self-Portrait, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991, p.83.

John McEwen, A Towering Talent, ‘The Spectator’, 8th May 2010, p.35–36.

Tommaso Pasquali, as in note 4, p.44.

St John on Patmos (after Veláquez) 1964 Oil on canvas 91.3 × 63.3 cm

Single Figure: I, II, III 1963 Oil on three canvases 120 × 210 cm

32

Gervase with Laurel in Morocco (El Farah Laurel) 1968 Watercolour on paper 25 × 35.4 cm

34

Gervase: Two Positions in Sleep 1968 Watercolour on paper 35.5 × 50.8 cm

36

Richard Beer 1968 Watercolour on paper 48 × 36 cm

Leather Boy 1966 Acrylic on canvas 26 × 20 cm

38

Seven Soviet Gymnasts 1966 Mixed media on paper 54 × 72 cm

Shades Study 1966 Ink and pencil on paper 17 × 24 cm

40

Shades Study II 1966 Gouache, ink and pencil on paper 40.5 × 51 cm

Don’t Sit Under the Tree 1965 Oil on canvas 139 × 157.5 cm

42

Tiny Blue Eyed Goldfish c. 1970 Watercolour on paper 35.2 × 51 cm

44

Objects of the Association – Mario Dubsky 1967-88 Watercolour on paper 23 × 34 cm

Study for "Shades" 1966 Watercolour on paper 34.3 × 38.1 cm Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Jack W. C. Hagstrom, M.D.

46

Heaton Hall: Study for Mirror 1966 Mixed media on paper 40 × 50.5 cm

Gervase 1968 Pencil on paper 29 × 43 cm

48

Genus Pom Pom Nan Kivelli 1968 Watercolour on paper 22.5 × 35 cm

Portraits of cast members from a production of Shakespeare’s

Twelfth Night, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1968.

50

Paul Greenwood ('Curio') 1968 Watercolour on paper 24.8 × 15.9 cm

Jack Shepherd ('Malvolio') 1968 Watercolour on paper 32.8 × 23.8 cm

52

John Normington ('Feste') 1968 Watercolour on paper 32.8 × 23.3 cm

John Steiner ('Aguecheek') 1968 Watercolour on paper 33.8 × 19.8 cm

54

Malcolm McDowell ('Sebastian') 1968 Watercolour on paper 33.8 × 19.8 cm

Malcolm Tierney ('Belch') 1968 Watercolour on paper 34 × 19.8 cm

56

Dennis Waterman ('Fabian') 1968 Watercolour on paper 33.9 × 19.8 cm

EGO (Eric Emerson, Gervase Griffiths, Ossie Clark) 1969 Watercolour on paper 63 × 101 cm

58

60

Juliet's One Dirham 1972 Watercolour on paper 22.2 × 27.5 cm

Untitled 1970 Watercolour on paper 23 × 31 cm

62

Ole Glaesner 1975 Oil and sand on canvas 53.5 × 59.5 cm

Temple of Luxor 1984 Oil on canvas 45.7 × 61 cm

64

Kôm Ombo, Dawn 1984 Watercolour on paper 45.5 × 60.5 cm

Egyptian Study 1985 Oil on canvas 45 × 60 cm

66

Pyramids of Giza from the West 1984 Watercolour on paper 45.5 × 60.5 cm

The Nile near Edfu 1985 Oil on canvas 50.5 × 76 cm

68

Hilary 1989 Watercolour on paper 40.6 × 30.5 cm

70

From Vaynol 1974 Gouache and watercolour on paper 35.5 × 47.8 cm

Dubai 1995 Oil on canvas 70 × 42 cm

72

above

Untitled c.2002 Watercolour on paper 18 × 26 cm

right

Untitled 2002 Oil on canvas 120 × 89.8 cm

74

Biographical Notes

1936

Born in Dublin. After

brought up by mother and maternal grandparents in

1963

London.

1946

1958

Commissioned to design

landscape painter Kyffin

opening; buyers include the

of Russian language;

until a devastating fire in

subsequent trips to Russia.

Moores Painting Prize.

works as an interpreter on

1999. Selected for John 1964

Generation exhibition –

which is purchased by

David Hockney and

Board.

by Robertson at the

annual Summer Exhibition,

alongside Patrick Caulfield,

Leicestershire Education

Bridget Riley – curated

of Fine Art, where taught

originally inspired by David Bomberg’s emphasis on the materiality of paint.

Under Vaughan’s

influence, Procktor begins painting simplified,

abstracted male nudes

using watercolour; his

portraits are distinctive

for the elegant, elongated depiction of his sitters,

recalling Old Masters such as Parmigianino.

1968

Included in the first New

the Redfern Gallery’s

Enters the Slade School

stirs controversy. Begins

William Coldstream’s old Marylebone – his home

Camberwell colleague

Becomes infatuated

with 22-year-old model Gervase Griffiths; solo

show in New York consists entirely of portraits of Griffiths.

1969

R.B. Kitaj, the new oils

Alan Davie, Hockney and

overtones. As a teacher

Also befriends Francis

Bacon and Cecil Beaton.

selected for group

along with Gillian Ayres,

with biblical and political

students like Keith Milow.

One of 12 British artists exhibition in Vienna

feature complex imagery

at Camberwell, inspires

including Ossie Clark

exhibited at the Redfern.

Second solo show at the Redfern; inspired by his

Portraits of friends,

and Derek Jarman, are

Whitechapel Gallery.

1965

Cage of God at Sadler’s

American leather boys,

Melbourne). Moves into

Royal Navy as a student

Designs costumes for

show at the Redfern, of

Gallery of Victoria,

flat in Manchester Street,

the interior of the Pavilion

Wells Theatre. Latest solo

behalf of the National

Conscripted into the

Submits a painting to

1967

and Kenneth Clark (on

works for a building

Royal College of Art.

for Expo 67, Montreal.

Contemporary Art Society

Leaves school at 16 and

and Keith Vaughan, but is

76

1966

Robertson to the Redfern

of works sell before the

where taught by Welsh

by William Coldstream

1962

Is recommended by Bryan

duly arranged. The majority

Paints at weekends.

1957

Visiting teacher at the

Attends Highgate School,

merchant in north London.

1954-6

1965-72

Gallery, and a solo show is

Williams RA. 1952-4

in an expressive manner.

Graduates from the Slade.

father’s death in 1940, is

Howard Hodgkin.

1970

Embarks on a solo voyage to India, with subsequent watercolours exhibited

to paint the portraits of

at the Redfern. Some

of these are translated

into aquatints, marking

the start of a successful

1984

relationship with

landscapes at the Galleria

are later shown at the Redfern.

1985

Kirsten Benson, who co-

the British Council to

in Devonshire Street.

state visit to Portugal.

1974

Birth of son Nicholas.

1976

Selected for John Moores

Retrospective exhibition

of graphic work opens at

Birmingham Museum and

Painting Prize. Illustrates a

Art Gallery, and tours the

new edition of Coleridge’s

The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner.

Becomes the first modern artist to visit China since

1987 1991

2016

Retrospective at Arts

France, Paris.

University Bournemouth, curated by Ian Massey.

2017

Selected for inclusion in

Queer British Art 1861–1967,

at Tate Britain.

Prize-winner at the Sunday

Shortlisted for the Charles

Academician.

Wollaston Award, at the

Royal Academy’s annual

Summer Exhibition.

Hamilton and Allen Jones.)

2003

Dies, at the age of 67.

Commissioned by the

2004

Work is part of a memorial

Imperial War Museum

Retrospective at Galerie de

Times Watercolour

2002

Dances. (Other artists

1983

2014

Cadre Gallery, Hong Kong.

Elected a Royal

part of the cover of Face include Caulfield, Richard

curated by Ian Massey.

Solo exhibition at the Le

1996

by Peter Blake to paint a The Who, to be used as

Huddersfield Art Gallery,

1992).

at the Redfern.

portrait of members of

Retrospective exhibition at

Competition (and again in

resulting works are shown One of 16 artists invited

comprehensive survey

UK.

the Cultural Revolution; the

1981

2012

document the Queen’s

founded Odin’s restaurant

1980

Commissioned by

Included in Tate Britain’s show of watercolours.

Egypt; the resulting works

Makes regular painting Marries his neighbour

2011

Completes a reredos,

Cathedral. Travels to

del Cavallino, Venice.

1973

Death of Kirsten.

the People, for Chichester

Solo exhibition of Venice

trips to Venice thereafter.

the RA Summer Exhibition.

entitled St John Baptising

printmaking.

1972

Frost and Colin Hayes, at

soldiers in Belize.

display alongside Terry

Patrick Procktor, Villeloin-Coulangé, France 1998 Photograph by R J Selby

77

Selected solo exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions

1963

The Redfern Gallery, London

1957

1967

The Redfern Gallery, London

1959

1965 1968 1969 1970 1971

1972

1973

1974 1975 1976 1977

1979

1980 1981

1985

1986 1987 1989

1996 2010 2012

2014

2016 2017

2023

78

The Redfern Gallery, London The Redfern Gallery, London

Lee Nordness Gallery, New York The Redfern Gallery, London

1962

Studio la Città, Verona

1963

The Redfern Gallery, London The Redfern Gallery, London

Galleria del Cavallino, Venice Galleria L’Approdo, Turin

1964

Salisbury Festival of the Arts

1965

Gallery 101, Johannesburg

1968

The Redfern Gallery, London

1966

Rochdale Art Gallery

1969

Galerie Biedermann, Munich

1970

Salisbury Playhouse

1981

Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield

Galleria del Cavallino, Venice The Redfern Gallery, London

David Paul Gallery, Chichester

1976

1983

Bohun Gallery, Henley-on-Thames

1988

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and

1990

The Redfern Gallery, London

toured to Dublin, Southampton and London Harris Art Gallery and Museum, Preston

1991

Galleria del Cavallino, Venice

1996

Le Cadre Gallery, Hong Kong

2001

and toured to Colchester, Mold, Newport,

2014

The Redfern Gallery, London

Davies Memorial Gallery, Newtown, Powys, Jarrow, Kendal and Stoke-on-Trent The Redfern Gallery, London The Redfern Gallery, London Huddersfield Art Gallery Galerie de France, Paris

Arts University Bournemouth The Redfern Gallery, London

Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna

2011

2016 2017

Summer Exhibition, Redfern Gallery, London

(also regularly from 1964 onwards)

Young Contemporaries, R.B.A. Galleries, London

(also 1960, 1961 and 1962)

The Vienna Youth Festival

The London Group Annual Exhibition, Art

Federation Galleries, London

John Moores 4, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

The New Generation, Whitechapel Art Gallery,

London

Spring Exhibition, Bradford City Art Gallery

Jeune Peinture Anglaise, Galerie Motte, Geneva Donner a Voir, Galerie Zunini, Paris

4 Works by 12 Artists, A.I.A. Gallery, London 12 Britische Artisten: Graphik und Objekte,

Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna

Image/dessin, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris John Moores 10, Walker Art Gallery

Abrahams, Hollweg, Procktor, Stockham,

Turlington, Wraxall Gallery, London

Prints and Literature, The Redfern Gallery, London Modern Prints: Spring Exhibition, The Redfern

Gallery, London

Visions of Venice, Bankside Gallery, London

Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Mall

Galleries, London

Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London

(annually until 2004)

Modern British, The Redfern Gallery, London Watercolour, Tate Britain, London

British Self-Portraits: Highlights from the Ruth

Borchard Collection, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester

Pure Romance, The Redfern Gallery, London

Queer British Art 1861–1967, Tate Britain, London

Selected public collections

Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London British Council Collection, London British Museum, London Chichester Cathedral Contemporary Art Society, London Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge Government Art Collection, London Imperial War Museum, London Leicestershire County Council Los Angeles County Museum Metropolitan Museum, New York Museum of Modern Art, New York Museums Sheffield National Portrait Gallery, London National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Old Jail Center, Albany, Texas

Patrick in the studio, Manchester Street, with Long Live the Great Leap Forward, winter 1966

Royal Academy of Arts, London

Photograph by Cecil Beaton

Royal Air Force Museum, London Museu de Arte São Paulo, Brazil Ruth Borchard Collection, London Tate, London UCL Art Museum, London Victoria & Albert Museum, London Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester

79

Published to coincide with the exhibition

Patrick Procktor: Stages 8 October to 8 November 2025 Curated by Ian Massey © The Artist's Estate, the authors and The Redfern Gallery, London Foreword: © Richard Selby Essay: © Ian Massey Photography: Alex Fox (all works unless stated) Ian Massey; p. 64 Design: Graham Rees Design Print: Five Castles

Ian Massey would like to thank the following people for their support in developing this exhibition: All at The Redfern Gallery Lee Brackstone Paul Gorman Tommaso Pasquali Cristyn Filla, Yale Center for British Art

front cover

Three Figures from Memory II 1964 Oil on canvas 198.1 × 172.7 cm

frontispiece (detail) [illus. p. 22]

Seton Bailey 1977

Oil and pastel on canvas 53.5 × 38 cm inside back cover (detail) [illus. p. 6]

The Beach: Figures in Red and Black 1962 Published by The Redfern Gallery, London 2025 ISBN: 978-0-948460-91-3

Oil on canvas 182.9 × 198.1 cm

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording or any other information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the gallery.

Patrick Procktor with Sheila Selby, Villeloin-Coulangé, France 1998 Photograph by R J Selby

20 Cork Street London W1S 3H L +44 (0)20 7734 1732 info@redfern-gallery.com redfern-gallery.com

80

82