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 Anthony Knowles Watkins
Associate of the Royal College of Art (Painting School 1957). 2007 Exhibition - Exeter University 2005 Exhibition: Works include the following exhibitions:
Journalism:
Reviews of the Artist:
Teaching:
Review: The following review, by Frank Ruhrmund, of Tony Watkins' one man show, "Past and Present", was published in The Cornishman on 25th August 2005. St Ives artist/designer exhibits for the first time in town. Although artist/designer Tony Watkins, whose exhibition Past & Present is now being held in the Mariner’s Gallery, St Ives, lives, with his wife Pamela, in a house once occupied by Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, and despite the fact that he has been busily making art there for the past five years or so, his work, without a harbour, fishing boat or seagull in sight, bears little or no relation to either past or present painting in the town. The first time he has exhibited in St Ives, something of a mini-retrospective, comprising close on 100 drawings, paintings and assemblages, his exhibition is one of the most unusual to be seen in this gallery in a good while. Born in London, his connections with Cornwall go back a long way, to when he was a small boy and came, during the Second World War, as an evacuee to live on a farm near Helston. It is a connection which continues to grow as only last year his daughter was married to a Cornishman who works in the fishing industry at Newlyn. His long career in art began at Sutton and Cheam School of Art from where he gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. While National Service in the RAF meant that he was unable to start there for a couple of years, he certainly made up for lost time. As he says: “The 1950s at the Royal College of Art was an extremely interesting, stimulating and challenging time.” As he was then rubbing shoulders with such as Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff and Peter Blake, to mention but a few, it could hardly be less. Thrown in, as it were, at the deep end among such an array of talent and touched by a variety of artistic ideas, for a while he was lucky enough to have John Minton as his tutor, and introduced to so many different directions, everything from Abstract Expressionism to Neo-Romanticism to the beginning of British Pop Art, it was, to say the least, a heady experience for a young budding artist. Subsequent to his graduation from the Royal College of Art where, as an Associate of the College (Painting School 1957), he held his first exhibition, as well as since exhibiting extensively elsewhere from Lymington to London, Truro to Taunton, and being represented in the Royal Academy’s summer show on several occasions, being twice commended in the Westward TV open art exhibition in 1977 and 1979, and being part of the opening exhibition of the Horizon Gallery at Land’s End in 1991, he also gained an appointment as Head of the Art Department at Bruton School for Girls in Somerset. It was there that, with the encouragement of the school’s enlightened headmistress, he was able to pursue his own work as well as teach others, and where he also developed a keen interest in theatre set and costume design. The samples of his theatre designs included in this exhibition show what a skilled designer he is. Indeed, such is his ability as a theatre designer that in the 1990s he was privileged in having one-man shows at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, London, and at the Salisbury Playhouse Gallery. The photographs he is showing of the theatre designs produced by some of the children he taught throughout the 40 or so years he was involved in education, demonstrate what a successful teacher he was. One whose methods and approach to his art are different from most, he often takes a topic, from the legendary Icarus, for example, to fossils from Chesil Beach, even computers, and then develops it in all manner of ways, from drawing to painting, assemblage to three-dimensional sculpture form. Multi-talented, an accomplished photographer as well as painter – for good measure he is also showing a dozen of his splendid photographs – he has also written about art and, during the 1970s, contributed reviews of exhibitions to the national Arts Review as well as to local newspapers in Somerset. One who, to judge from many of the works he is showing here, is especially fond of, and is certainly able at, drawing, he explains his diversity thus: “Often my work is experimental, mentally and physically. Metaphors and associations of ideas can be found in my configurations – my sea and landscapes, environmental, archaeological, studies, and so on – and sometimes subjects become clear and apparent, while at other times they become more abstract in an organic way, and often with surrealist overtones.” An artist/designer who is difficult to categorise or label, while he does not fit easily into any recognised artistic box, his work is as intriguing as it is impressive, as staggering as it is satisfying. Not to be missed, an extraordinary exhibition by one who is exceptionally gifted, admission is free, and Tony Watkins’ one-man show, Past & Present can be seen in the Mariner’s Gallery, Norway Square, St Ives, until September 2. Copyright © The Cornishman 2005 All Rights Reserved |
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