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Kenneth Rowntree (1915 - 1997)

St Johns College Barge on the Isis at Oxford, c. 1955

SKU: 6457
Signed
Oil on canvas
39.5 x 50 cm

Size:
Height – 39.5cm
Width – 50cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
The Artist’s Family
Presentation:
framed

Literature: Kenneth Rowntree, A Centenary Exhibition, Moore-Gwyn Fine Art and Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, Cat. 9, p.34

Exhibited: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Oxford Barges, May 1956; Bear Lane
Gallery, Oxford, February 1959, no.9; Fry Art Gallery, Kenneth Rowntree, A Centenary Exhibition , no 23
Rowntree’s paintings of Oxford Barges were shown at the Ashmoelan Gallery in  May 1956. The Oxford Barges.  The pictures were  commissioned in 1956 by J.M Richards of The Architectural Review, to accompany an article written by Diana Rowntree.


Yet while Rowntree spent much of the war painting relics of older times, he was not simply guided by nostalgia, and seldom edited out the signs of modern life when these occurred, relishing the jolt of anachronism and geometrical order they could bring. He did not pursue primitivism to the extent of breaking the conventions of scale and perspective, and his self-aware innocence should perhaps be attributed rather to a combination of personal preference and belief with a general enthusiasm for the fresh vision of folk art shared by many artist contemporaries. 



This affection for innocent decoration played an active role in Rowntree’s work when he painted the Oxford College Barges, originally converted from London Livery Company Thames barges into slightly baroque viewing stations for college bumps’, but by this time rapidly decaying. The paintings were used to illustrate an article by Diana in the Architectural Review in July 1956, arguing for a more sensitive approach to the planning of boathouse buildings along the Isis, and shown at the Ashmolean Museum, helping to stir an effort to save the barges, Alan Powers, Kenneth Rowntree a Centenary Exhibition, p 35
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THE ARTIST

Kenneth Rowntree
Kenneth
Rowntree
1915 - 1997

Painter, illustrator, artist in collage and murals, draughtsman and teacher, born in Scarborough, Yorkshire. He studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford, under Albert Rutherston, 1934’35, and at the Slade under Randolph Schwabe. During World War II he participated in the Pilgrim Trust Recording Britain project and was an Official War Artist. He had his first one-man exhibition at Leicester Galleries in 1946; other one-man shows followed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Zwemmer Gallery, New Art Centre, and the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with a retrospective at Hatton Gallery there in 1980. In 1949 he became a tutor at RCA, a post he held until 1958. In 1959 he became Professor of Fine Arts, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, succeeding Lawrence Gowing; he held the position until 1980. In 1992 a touring retrospective was organinsed, starting in Newtown. Group shows included NEAC, AIA and RSW. He became a member of the Society of Mural Painters in 1943, taught mural painting at the Royal College of Art for 10 years from 1948, and received a Ford Foundation Grant to visit America in 1959. In 1948 he illustrated A Prospect of Wales. Murals completed include those for Barclay School, Stevenage, 1946, RMS Orsova and Iberia, 1954, and the British Pavilion at Brussels International Exhibition in 1958. In 1951 he painted murals for the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion at the Festival of Britain. Tate, Victoria & Albert Museum and WAC are among many public owners of his work. Rowntree’s pictures reflect the genial and witty nature of the artist, usually being landscapes and townscapes in which the elements have a toy-like neatness and familiar notations are employed. In the post-war years he also painted a considerable number of abstract (and semi-abstract) works. His work is sometimes signed with just his initials. He lived at Corbridge, Northumberland.

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