Prunella Clough

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Prunella Clough (11 November 1919 - 26 December 1999) was a prominent 20th century British artist. "Her subjects are closely observed details and scenes from the landscape. The images are combined and filtered through memory, and evolve through a slow process of layering and re-working." [1]

Contents

[edit] Background

Born on 11 November 1919 in Chelsea, London to an affluent upper middle-class family, she was initially educated privately by her father, the poet Eric Taylor,[2] before enrolling at the Chelsea School of Art (since 1986 known as the Chelsea College of Art and Design) in 1937.

[edit] Career

Apart from wartime service, [3] she painted full-time until her death in 1999, supplementing her income with lecturing posts at the Chelsea and Wimbledon Schools of Art [4]. Clough painted the industrial landscapes of post-WWII Britain.

Her works were exhibited at, among other places, the Leger Gallery (1947), Roland, Browse and Delblanco (1949), Leicester Galleries (1953), Whitechapel Gallery (1960), Grosvenor Gallery (1964, 1968) Sheffield (1972), Serpentine (1976), Perth, Western Australia (1974), Edinburgh (1976), Aberdeen (1981), Hiroshima (1988), and, retrospectively, at the Olympia (2004) [5] and the Tate Gallery (2007) [6]

In 1977 she won the City of London Midsummer Prize, and in 1999, the year of her death, she was awarded the £30,000 Jerwood Prize for painting [7]. Significant collections of her work are housed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Clare College, Cambridge.

[edit] Death

She died on 26 December 1999, aged 80, following a battle with cancer.

[edit] Favourite Quote

"Painting is like throwing oneself into the sea to learn to swim" (Édouard Manet) - often quoted in interviews by Clough

[edit] Sources

  • Prunella Clough, Banks, R. (Ed.) (2003, London, Annely Juda Fine Art), ISBN 1 870 28099 7

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sunday Telegraph, Issue #2396, 13 May 2007, Arts Section, Graham-Dixon, A., Heart of Industry
  2. ^ Who's Who, 1971, p. 611, ISBN 0 713 61140 5
  3. ^ Debrett's People of Today, 1992, p. 390, ISBN 1 870 52009 2
  4. ^ Prunella Clough, Tufnell, B. (Ed) (2007, London, Tate Publishing), ISBN 9 781 854 37699 2
  5. ^ Artist WebSite
  6. ^ Tate Gallery exhibitions
  7. ^ Overview of Clough's achievements