Artist profile

Alan Reynolds

The Village Fair ( 1952)

Oil on board
25.5 x 36.3 cm (ref:AR0168 )

The Poet Goes Poaching (1951 )

Oil on board
23.5 x 27.5 cm (ref:AR0266)

Yellow, Green and Black Forms (1959 )

Oil on board
50 x 58 cm (ref:AR0079 )

Composition - Brown, Green and Grey (1959)

Oil on board
100 x 74 cm (ref:AR1123)

Winter Image (1958)

Oil on board
40 x 29 cm (ref:AR1109)

Structure - July 1964 (1964)

Oil on board
114 x 127.5 (ref:AR0345)

Structure - Ovoid Ground (1962 )

Oils on prepared Essex board
110 x 100 cm (ref:AR0708)

Untitled (1959 )

Watercolour on paper
30 x 46 cm (ref:AR1204 )

Forms - Red, Orange and Black (c.1960 )

Acrylic on paper
40.5 x 35 cm (ref:AR1061 )

Structures-Group III (31) 2/3 scale (1994)

Prepared card on wood base
93.1 x 62.5 x 0.7 cm (ref:AR0304)

Structures-Group IV (15) (2000)

Prepared card on wood base
117 x 117 x 1 cm (ref:AR0447)

Structures-Group IV Rotation No. 14 (2/3 scale) (2008)

Prepared card on wood base
72 x 72 x 0.5 cm (ref:AR0626)

Alan Reynolds was an artist whose career falls into two halves: the landscape and abstract painter of the 1950s and 1960s, and the constructive artist of the 45 years. The quest for equilibrium was at the centre of Alan’s art, ever since he emerged from the Royal College of Art in 1953. Alan’s work, from that time, which earned him early recognition and success, was influenced by the landscape of his native Suffolk and the hop gardens and orchards of his adoptive Kent. From 1968 onwards, depiction was firmly set aside in favour of the ‘concrete’ image. For more than 45 years, Alan worked entirely as a concrete artist, making tonal modular drawings and constructed white reliefs. He had growing success, which led to international exhibitions including a retrospective at the Städtische Galerie im Schloss, Wolfsburg and the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen in 1996. Apart from his home country, he was particularly admired in France and Germany.

Biography

1926
Born in Newmarket, Suffolk
1948–52
Woolwich Polytechnic School of Art
1952–53
Awarded scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London and received medal for painting in his first year
1954–61
Taught drawing at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London
1955
International prize at Giovani Pittori, Rome
1957
Married Vona Darby
1958
Painted landscape until 1958
1961
Started teaching painting at St. Martin's School of Art, London
1965
CoID Award
1967
Arts Council Purchase Award
1985
Appointed Senior Lecturer of painting at St. Martin's School of Art, London
1990
Retired from lecturing
1990–2014
Lived and worked in Kent

Selected exhibitions

2018
Relief, Zeichnungen, Druck, Galerie Wack, Kaiserslautern
2011
Recent Reliefs & Drawings, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
2009
Alan Reynolds – le cerclage du carré, Galerie Gimpel & Müller, Paris
2006
Circling the Square, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
2003
Retrospective, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
1996
Retrospective, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany