David Prentice

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This article is about the English artist. For the American artist, see David R. Prentice.
Field Grid: Omicron Eridani (1969), Oil on canvas
Field Grid: Omicron Eridani (1969), Oil on canvas

David Prentice (born July 4, 1936) is an English artist and former art teacher. In 1964 he was one of the four founder members of Birmingham's Ikon Gallery.[1]

Prentice's work features in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago,[2] the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.[3]

He is married to the quilt artist Dinah Prentice and since 1990 has lived and worked in Malvern, Worcestershire.

[edit] Biography

Prentice was born in Solihull and educated at Moseley Road Secondary School of Art, Birmingham between 1949 and 1952, and Birmingham School of Art between 1952 and 1957.[4] In 1957 he did National Service in the Royal Artillery,[3] returning to the Birmingham School of Art to teach from 1959. Prentice taught at the Faculty of Art of Birmingham Polytechnic between 1971 and 1986, initially in charge the experimental workshop, and has been a visiting artist at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham University, the Ruskin School and the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.[5]

Fringe - Fold - Farm (2006), Oil on canvas
Fringe - Fold - Farm (2006), Oil on canvas

Prentice held solo exhibitions at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1961 and 1963, and in the same year as the second featured in the Four Letter Art exhibition organised by Trevor Denning. Prentice has since held over forty solo exhibitions.[2]

It was at Prentice's 1963 solo exhibition that his painting Kate and the Waterlilies was bought by Angus Skene for £25, with Prentice delivering the painting to Skene's house in Selly Oak strapped to the side of his Vespa scooter. Over the subsequent meal the two discussed the lack of support provided to local artists by Birmingham's existing galleries, and decided to start a new organisation to "invigorate the city with progressive ideas about art". Prentice recruited three fellow artists from the School of Art - Jesse Bruton, Robert Groves and Sylvani Merilion - and in 1965 the four established the Ikon Gallery in a kiosk in Birmingham's Bull Ring.[6] Prentice later said of Ikon's founders: "The stances of the original artists were all very different. Sometimes we were going in opposite directions, but we were all Brummies. We had all come out of the art school thinking 'we can do better than this' ... there was an element of wanting to shift the ground we all shared."[7]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Some of the Best Things in Life Happen Accidentally 28 July – 12 September 2004. Programme - Past. Ikon Gallery. Retrieved on 2008-03-24.
  2. ^ a b DAVID PRENTICE - Biography. Mark Barrow Fine Art (2005). Retrieved on 2007-10-20.
  3. ^ a b Barrow, Mark (2006). DAVID PRENTICE - Landscape Paintings - 3rd - 25th November 2006. Galleries Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-03-08.
  4. ^ (2004) "Biographies - David Prentice", in Watkins, Jonathan; Stevenson, Diana: Some of the best things in life happen accidentally: the beginning of Ikon. Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 124. ISBN 1904864023. 
  5. ^ Buckman, David (2006). "David PRENTICE 1936-", Artists in Britain Since 1945. Bristol: Art Dictionaries Ltd, 1291. ISBN 095326095X. 
  6. ^ Watkins, Jonathan (2004). "Some of the best things in life happen accidentally", in Watkins, Jonathan; Stevenson, Diana: Some of the best things in life happen accidentally: the beginning of Ikon. Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 36-38. ISBN 1904864023. 
  7. ^ Stevenson, Diana (2004). "Interview - David Prentice", in Watkins, Jonathan; Stevenson, Diana: Some of the best things in life happen accidentally: the beginning of Ikon. Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 117. ISBN 1904864023.