PRUNELLA CLOUGH

One of the subtlest and most poetic British artists of the last half century, Prunella Clough's sophisticated works combine the organic with the geometric, the soft with the hard, the spontaneous with the structured and the tender with the robust.

Beginning as a representational painter of industrial subjects Clough moved to more poetic abstractions inspired by her sensory impressions of the world around her.

1919 Born in Chelsea, London. Her father worked for the Board of Trade and her aunt was the architect designer Eileen Gray.

1937 Attended Chelsea School of Art (part-time). Studied design, life drawing and sculpture (where Henry Moore was a tutor).

1939-45 Worked in Office of War Information (USA) drawing charts and maps and working on magazine layouts.

1946-49 Studied with Victor Pasmore at Camberwell School of Art (part-time). Visited various fishing ports in East Anglia including Lowestoft.

1950s Was part of the group which included Michael Ayrton, Keith Vaughan, John Croxton and the poet Dylan Thomas that met in the Camden Hill Studio, which John Minton shared with Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun. Work included in the 60 Paintings for '51 Festival of Britain exhibition and the first Sao Paulo Biennale.

1956-69 Taught part-time at Chelsea School of Art.

1966-97 Taught part-time at Wimbledon School of Art.

1999 Awarded Jerwood Painting Prize. Died 26 December in London.
Solo Exhibitions

1947 Leger Gallery, London

1949 Roland Browse and Delbanco, London

1953 Leicester Galleries, London

1960 Whitechapel Gallery, London

1964 Grosvenor Gallery, London

1967 Grosvenor Gallery, London

1972 Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield

1973 New Art Centre, London

1975 New Art Centre, London, Park Square Gallery, Leeds

1976 New Art Centre, London, Serpentine Gallery, London, National

Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

1979 New Art Centre, London

1982 New Art Centre, London,

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,

Warwick Art Trust, London

1985 Imperial College Consort Gallery, London

1989 Annely Juda Fine Art, London

1992 Annely Juda Fine Art, London, Flowers Graphics, London

1992-3 Art Collection, Arthur Anderson, London

1993 Annely Juda Fine Art, London

1996 Camden Arts Centre, London travelling to Oriel 31, Newtown Powys, Wales, The Customs House Gallery, South Shields

1997-8 Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Hovikodden, Norway

1998 Annely Juda Fine Art, London

1999 Kettle's Yard, Cambridge Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield

1999-2001 Prunella Clough Spotlight, Arts Council exhibition, University of Essex, Colchester; touring to Muni Arts Centre, Pontypridd (2000); The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery; Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster; Ropewalk Contemporary Art Centre; Plymouth City Art Gallery; Ruthin Gallery (2001), Buckley Library; Denbigh Museum and Art Gallery; Gainsborough's House, Sudbury

2000 Annely Juda Fine Art, London

2003 Annely Juda Fine Art, London


Group Exhibitions

1947 The London Group, RBA Galleries, London Homestead Exhibition, Southwold; Young British Artists: selected by Bernard Denvir, Heal's Mansard Gallery, London Summer Exhibition, Redfern Gallery, London

1948 Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Women Painters and Sculptors, RBA Galleries, London; Names to Remember, Roland Browse and Delbanco, London; Young Pointers Working in Britain, A.I.A. Gallery, London

1949 Paintings and Drawings by London Artists, selected by Leonard Rosoman, International House, Edinburgh; Artists of Fame and Promise, Roland Browse and Delbanco, London

1950 Pittsburgh International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, USA; The London Group, New Burlington Galleries, London; A Private Collection, York City Art; Gallery Scenes de Ballet by Contemporary Artists, Wildenstein, London; Painters Progress, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London;

Summer Exhibition, Redfern Gallery, London; Summer Exhibition, RBA Galleries, London; Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, London; Summer Exhibition, Gimpel Fils, London; 20th-Century British Painters, Lefevre Gallery; Cross Section of Drawings and Watercolours, Roland Browse and Delbanco, London

1951 Exhibition of Drawing, Redfern Gallery, London; 60 paintings for '51, RBA Galleries, London; First anthology of British Painting 1925-50, organised by the Arts Council, London and Manchester; I Bienal at the Museo de Arte Moderne, Sao Paulo; Young Contemporaries, RBA Galleries, London; New Year Exhibition, Leicester Galleries, London; British Painting, New Burlington Galleries, London; Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, London

1952 Four Contemporaries, Heffer's Gallery, London; Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, London

        

1953 Summer Exhibition, Roland Browse and Delbanco, London; New Year Exhibition, Leicester Galleries, London; London Group Show, New Burlington Galleries, London

1954 Figures in their Setting, Contemporary Art Society, Tate Gallery, London; British painting and Sculpture, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

1955 Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, London

1956 Vision and Reality, Wakefield City Art Gallery; Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, London; Mostra Internationale di Bianco e Nero, Lugano

1957 A.I.A. Gallery, exhibition with AdrianHeath, London

1960 The Guggenheim Foundation International Award, RWS Galleries, London

1963 First Image, Grosvenor Gallery, London

1965 Hambledon Gallery, Blandford

        

1966 The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford

1967 The Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol

1968 The Frederick Wright Gallery, UCLA, Berkeley, California

1969 Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester

1971 Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford

1972 Bruton Gallery, Somerset

1974 Desborough Gallery, Perth, Australia; British Painting, Hayward Gallery, London

1975 Eton College; Park Square Gallery, Leeds; Sunderland Arts Centre

1977 Monika Kinley, London; Peter Millard, Saskatoon, Canada; British Art 1952-1977, Royal Academy, London

1978 Liverpool Academy of Art        

1979 Imperial College Consort Gallery, London

1981 Artspace Galleries, Aberdeen

1982-3 Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and tour

1984 Studio ODD, Hiroshima, Japan

1985 Imperial College Consort Gallery, London

        

1988 Albemarle Gallery, London

1989 Monoprints, Flowers East, London

1991 The Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, London and tour

1992 Drawing from the Imagination, Morley Gallery, London; British Abstract Painting, Adelson Galleries Inc., New York

1993 New Beginnings. Postwar British Art from the Collection of Ken Powell, toured Edinburgh, Sheffield and London

        

1994 British Abstraction, Flowers East, London

1995 British Abstract Art Part I: Paintings, Flowers East at London Fields, London

        

1995-6 Natural Forces, Reed's Wharf Gallery, London

        

1996 British Abstract Art Part III: Works on Paper, Flowers East at London Fields, London; The Print Show 1996, Flowers Graphics, London

1997 Aldeburgh Festival 50th Anniversary; Print, Riverside Studios, London; The Print Show 1997, Flowers Graphics, London

1998 The Print Show 1998, Flowers Graphics, London

1999 New Prints and Publications, Flowers Graphics, London; Contemporary British Landscape, Flowers East, London; The Print Show 1999, Flowers Graphics, London; White Out, Gallery Fine, London