Neil Shawcross

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Neil Shawcross
Detail of portrait of Sir Terry Frost by Neil Shawcross 2001
Born	March 15, 1940 Kearsley, Lancashire, England
Nationality	British
Field	Portraiture, nudes, still life, printmaking, stained glass
Training	Bolton College of Art, Lancaster College of Art
Movement	Post-impressionism
Influenced by	Howard Hodgkin
Awards	Gallaher Portrait Prize 1966 RUA Conor Award 1975 RUA Gold Medal 1978, 1982, 1987, 1994, 1997, 2001 RUA Academician 1978 Arnolds National Portrait Award, Dublin 1990 James Adam Prize 1998

Neil Shawcross (March 15, 1940) is an artist born in Kearsley, Lancashire, England, and resident in Northern Ireland since 1962. Primarily a portrait painter, his subjects have included novelist Francis Stuart (for the Ulster Museum), former Lord Mayor of Belfast David Cook (for Belfast City Council), footballer Derek Dougan and fellow artists Colin Middleton and Terry Frost. He also paints the figure and still life, taking a self-consciously child-like approach to composition and colour. His work also includes printmaking, and he has designed stained glass for the Ulster Museum and St. Colman's Church, Lambeg, County Antrim. He lives in Hillsborough, County Down.

Shawcross studied at Bolton College of Art from 1955 to 1958, and Lancaster College of Art from 1958 to 1960, before moving to Belfast in 1962 to take up a part-time lecturer's post at the Belfast College of Art, becoming full-time in 1968. The Belfast College of Art became part of the University of Ulster in 1984, and Shawcross continued to lecture there until his retirement in 2004. He has also lectured at Pennsylvania State University in the United States. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art in 1975, and was made a full Academician in 1977. He won the Academy's Conor Award in 1975, its Gold Medal in 1978, 1982, 1987, 1994, 1997 and 2001, and its James Adam Prize in 1998. He has exhibited nationally, with one-man shows in London, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast, and internationally in Hong Kong and the United States, and his work is found in many private and corporate collections.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]