John Craxton
Encyclopedia
John Leith Craxton, RA, (3 October 1922 - 17 November 2009) was an English
painter. He was sometimes called a neo-Romantic
artist but he preferred to be known as a "kind of Arcadian".
and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
in Paris during 1939, until the outbreak of war
meant he had to complete his studies in London, at Westminster School of Art
and the Central School of Art
. Between 1941 and 1942, having been rejected for military service, he attended Goldsmiths College
, then toured the wilds of Pembrokeshire
with Graham Sutherland
in 1943. His first solo exhibition was in London in 1942 at the Swiss Cottage Café, and his first major solo show at the Leicester Galleries in 1944. His work was seen as part of the neo-romantic
revival, and his early pre-1945 work shows the influence of Samuel Palmer
and Graham Sutherland, and he was also heavily influenced by friend and patron Peter Watson
.
After the war he travelled to the Isles of Scilly
, Switzerland
, Istanbul
, Spain
, Italy
, but mainly Greece
especially Crete
, from 1946-1966. He moved permanently to Crete from about 1970, and switched between living in Crete and in London. The writer Richard Olney
remembered Craxton in Paris, en-route to Greece during the summer of 1951;
In 1951 Craxton was a ballet
designer for the Royal Ballet
's production of Daphnis and Chloë
, at a time when ballet stage design provided a haven for the neo-Romantic arts. He was able to use his first-hand experience of Greece to inform his ballet designs.
He had numerous shows of his paintings in both England and Greece. A major retrospective show was held at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1967. His later work became more formal, structured and decorative, although still expressing Romantic pastoral themes.
He produced the scenery and costumes for the Royal Opera House
's 1968 production of Igor Stravinsky
's Apollo.
His work was also reproduced in magazines such as New Writing, Horizon
, and he has illustrated the books of Patrick Leigh Fermor
. He produced lithographs for several anthologies edited by Geoffrey Grigson
, including Visionary Poems (1944).
He was the son of Harold Craxton
. His older brother Harold Antony Craxton (1918–1999) became a leading television producer and outside broadcaster. His sister Janet
became a notable oboist
.
He was elected Royal Academician in 1993. Craxton lived and worked in both Chania
, Crete and London. His love of Crete extended to his being one of the British Honorary Consul
s there. He never married; he died aged 87, survived by his long-term partner Richard Riley.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter. He was sometimes called a neo-Romantic
Neo-romanticism
The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...
artist but he preferred to be known as a "kind of Arcadian".
Career
He applied for Chelsea School of Art but was considered to be too young to attend nude life classes. He studied instead at the Académie JulianAcadémie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...
in Paris during 1939, until the outbreak of war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
meant he had to complete his studies in London, at Westminster School of Art
Westminster School of Art
The Westminster School of Art was an art school in Westminster, London. It was located at 18 Tufton Street, Deans Yard, Westminster, and was part of the old Architectural Museum.H. M. Bateman described it in 1903 as...
and the Central School of Art
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...
. Between 1941 and 1942, having been rejected for military service, he attended Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...
, then toured the wilds of Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....
with Graham Sutherland
Graham Sutherland
Graham Vivien Sutherland OM was an English artist.-Early life:He was born in Streatham, attending Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton. He was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey before going up to Goldsmiths, University of London...
in 1943. His first solo exhibition was in London in 1942 at the Swiss Cottage Café, and his first major solo show at the Leicester Galleries in 1944. His work was seen as part of the neo-romantic
Neo-romanticism
The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...
revival, and his early pre-1945 work shows the influence of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.-Early life:...
and Graham Sutherland, and he was also heavily influenced by friend and patron Peter Watson
Peter Watson (arts benefactor)
Victor William Watson was a wealthy English art collector and benefactor. He funded the literary magazine, Horizon, edited by Cyril Connolly.-Life and work:...
.
After the war he travelled to the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, but mainly Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
especially Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, from 1946-1966. He moved permanently to Crete from about 1970, and switched between living in Crete and in London. The writer Richard Olney
Richard Olney (food writer)
Richard Olney was an American painter, cook, food writer, editor, and memoirist, best known for his books of French country cooking....
remembered Craxton in Paris, en-route to Greece during the summer of 1951;
- "Most nights, John Craxton, a young English painter, arrived to share my bed; we kept each other warm. He moved in a bucolic dreamworld, peopled with beautiful Greek goat herders. Soon he left for Greece."
In 1951 Craxton was a ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
designer for the Royal Ballet
Royal Ballet, London
The Royal Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the four major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois, it became the resident ballet...
's production of Daphnis and Chloë
Daphnis et Chloé
Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" . The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from an eponymous romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD...
, at a time when ballet stage design provided a haven for the neo-Romantic arts. He was able to use his first-hand experience of Greece to inform his ballet designs.
He had numerous shows of his paintings in both England and Greece. A major retrospective show was held at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1967. His later work became more formal, structured and decorative, although still expressing Romantic pastoral themes.
He produced the scenery and costumes for the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
's 1968 production of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's Apollo.
His work was also reproduced in magazines such as New Writing, Horizon
Horizon (magazine)
Horizon: A Review of Literature and Art was an influential literary magazine published in London, between 1940 and 1949. It was edited by Cyril Connolly who gave a platform to a wide range of distinguished and emerging writers....
, and he has illustrated the books of Patrick Leigh Fermor
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick "Paddy" Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE was a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance during World War II. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer", with books including his classic A Time of...
. He produced lithographs for several anthologies edited by Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British writer. He was born in Pelynt, a village near Looe in Cornwall.-Life:...
, including Visionary Poems (1944).
He was the son of Harold Craxton
Harold Craxton
Thomas Harold Hunt Craxton, OBE was an English pianist and composer.Craxton studied piano at the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School and made a name for himself early in his career as an accompanist with performers such as Dame Nellie Melba, Dame Clara Butt, Lionel Tertis and John McCormack.In 1919...
. His older brother Harold Antony Craxton (1918–1999) became a leading television producer and outside broadcaster. His sister Janet
Janet Craxton
Janet Helen Rosemary Craxton was an English oboe player and teacher. She was the youngest of the six children and the only daughter of the pianist and teacher Harold Craxton. Her older brothers included the artist John Craxton...
became a notable oboist
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
.
He was elected Royal Academician in 1993. Craxton lived and worked in both Chania
Chania
Chaniá , , also transliterated Chania, Hania, and Xania, older form Chanea and Venetian Canea, Ottoman Turkish خانيه Hanya) is the second largest city of Crete and the capital of the Chania peripheral unit...
, Crete and London. His love of Crete extended to his being one of the British Honorary Consul
Consul (representative)
The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...
s there. He never married; he died aged 87, survived by his long-term partner Richard Riley.
External links
- Work by Craxton http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/18455in the British CouncilBritish CouncilThe British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
collection]; - Royal Academy Magazine;
- Some works at Offer Waterman & Co.;
- Several works at Jonathan Clark Fine Art;
- John Craxton - Daily Telegraph obituary;
- John Craxton - Times obituary;
- John Craxton - The Guardian's obituary by Ian Collins;
- D.J. Taylor's review of a book (August 2008) on John Murray by Humphrey CarpenterHumphrey CarpenterHumphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.-Biography:...
that mentions the recent rejection by Waterstone'sWaterstone'sWaterstone's is a British book specialist established in 1982 by Tim Waterstone that employs around 4,500 staff throughout the United Kingdom and Europe....
of a Craxton book cover; - Obituary of Christopher Hull in the Independent of 26 April 2007.
- Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard early 2010;