Studio 2
Jack Crabtree
On The Wall………………………
A series of crafted fine art by north Wales artists
Series curation: Jonathan Le Vay
………………………
Tower Block
Jack Crabtree was born in Rochdale in 1938. He studied at Rochdale College of Art from 1955 to 1957 before going on to St Martin’s College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools in London.
Since then he has carved out a significant career combining teaching with numerous fellowships, commissions and over seventy solo exhibitions of his paintings, drawings, graphic works, objects and installations particularly in Wales, England, Germany and Ireland.
After leaving the Royal Academy he taught at regional art colleges including Salford and Rochdale and then Newport. He was later appointed Professor of Fine Art at the University of Ulster in Belfast from 1984 to his retirement from teaching in 1994.
In 1974 Jack Crabtree was commissioned by the National Coal Board to document the life and conditions of miners in the coal fields of South Wales. This work was continued through the Gregynog Arts Fellowship from the University of Wales. In 1977 he was the first recipient of the Ruhr Arts Fellowship awarded by the German Federal Government for which he created a pictorial record of the steel industry in the Ruhr Valley. His work features in the collections of institutions such as Ulster Museum, the National Trust and the National Museum of Wales along with two early paintings in the art collection at Touchstones Rochdale.
The nineteen mixed media paintings in this exhibition are his very latest work, forming part of his new Tower Block series. All are for sale.
