JOHN BRATBY RA (1928-1992) - Receive artist alerts » - More items from this artist »

Oil on canvas

Signed Bratby top right

91.00cm wide    137.00cm high    5.00cm deep (35.83 inches wide  53.94 inches high  1.97 inches deep)

Excellent

An English painter, writer and teacher John Bratby studied at the Kingston College of Art (1948-50) and later at the Royal College of Art (1951-4). Here he was awarded a travel bursary to study in Italy, but he was not very impressed by the art he saw there and subsequently preferred not to travel.

His painting reflects his preference for the quotidian details of domestic English life captured in an unapologetically realist style; paint is applied in dense strokes using a vibrant palette and is unflinching in its depiction of ugly and wretched demeanours.

His own family was his favourite subject matter and he often included the disarray of urban home life in his pictures as in 'Still-Life with Chipfryer', 1954, now in the Tate Gallery. His interest in social realism brought him into contact with Jack Smith, Edward Middleditch and Derrick Greaves, who together became known as the ‘Kitchen Sink School’ (also referred to as the Beaux Arts Quartet). But while the latter artists chose primarily to portray the language of working class domesticity, Bratby’s vigorous colour and use of a more middle-class milieu distinguished him from his peers.

Bratby taught for two short periods, initially at Carlisle College of Art (1956) and subsequently at the Royal College of Art (1957-8). In the late Sixties he began to paint a series of ‘celebrity’ portraits, including the actress Billie Whitelaw. In the Seventies and Eighties, the series progressed into a type of Hall of Fame.

While travelling abroad in the 1980s he produced a number of cityscapes, particularly Venice which became a favourite haunt. His preferred subject matter became himself and his second wife Patti Prime, whom he painted with intimate detail and his customary vivid palette.

Signed 'BRATBY' (top right), inscribed 'Snow Scene', this painting depicts a snow scene from the artist's home in Barnes.