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Humphrey Ocean
RA
Born
Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon

(1951-06-22)22 June 1951(age 73)
Pulborough,West Sussex,England
Education
Notable work
  • Lord Volvo and his Estate(1982)
  • Paul McCartney(1983)
  • Philip Larkin(1984)
  • Black Love Chair(2007)
  • Randy Lerner(2016)
SpouseMiranda Argyle
ElectedRoyal Academician (26 May 2004)
Websitehumphreyocean.com

Humphrey OceanRA(born 22 June 1951)[1]is a contemporary British painter.

Early life

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Humphrey Ocean was born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon, on 22 June 1951 inSussex.He went toAmpleforth Collegeand in 1967 went toTunbridge WellsSchool of Art for two years, going on to do a Foundation Course atBrighton College of Artand DipAD Painting atCanterbury College of Art.

It was atCanterburythat he was taught byIan Dury,then a painter. From 1971 he was bass player with the bandKilburn and the High Roadsformed at Canterbury with Dury. They opened forThe Whoon its Christmas tour in 1973, after which Ocean resigned from music with the notable exception of recording the single "Whoops-a-Daisy" written by Ian Dury and Russell Hardy, forStiff Recordsin 1978.

Art

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Ocean's earliest notable work as an artist was as a designer and pencil-artist for record album covers and sleeves; in particular, he contributed pencil drawings for the cover and lyric insert for10cc's 1975 albumThe Original Soundtrack,[2]and inner-sleeve art forPaul McCartney and Wings' 1976 albumWings at the Speed of Sound.[3]

In 1983, Ocean paintedPaul McCartney's portrait as part of the first prize in the 1982Imperial Tobacco Portrait Awardwith his paintingLord Volvo and his Estateand the following year painted the poetPhilip Larkin's portrait, also for theNational Portrait Gallery,[4]a work described by the novelistNick Hornbyas "unanswerable".

Philip Larkin, acrylic on canvas, 1984, Humphrey Ocean (NPG 5746)

In 1988 Ocean travelled to Northern Brazil with the AmericananthropologistStephen Nugent, a lecturer at theUniversity of London,eager to expose colonial caricatures of the region. Their subsequent book,Big Mouth: The Amazon Speaks,was published by Fourth Estate (HarperCollins) in 1990, and features evocative illustrations of Brazil. In 1999 theNational Maritime Museumcommissioned Ocean to paint a picture of modern maritime Britain. Throughout the 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century, Ocean's paintings were exhibited in many of the leading museums in the United Kingdom.

In 2002, Ocean was Artist-in-Residence at theDulwich Picture Gallery,culminating inhow's my driving,an exhibition linking 17th-century Dutchgenre paintingswith south London suburbia.[5]That year he was awarded an honorary fellowship by Canterbury College of Art where he had been a student between 1970-1973.[6]In 2009 he worked on anArtangelprojectLife Class: Today's Nudedirected by Alan Kane, shown on Channel 4 television. He also paintedCatherine Hughesin her role as principal ofSomerville College, Oxford.

Gabor, gouache on paper, 2009 Humphrey Ocean

A handbook of modern life

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Ocean came to prominence with his exhibitionA handbook of modern life(2012–13) at theNational Portrait Gallery Londoncurated by Rosie Broadley who wrote:

"Working swiftly ingouacheon large sheets of paper in his studio, Ocean paints his sitters, including family members, friends and professional acquaintances, in simple forms and bold colours. The project has an obsessive character that is compelling and, when seen together, the portraits are an exuberant display of the artist's love of painting, colour and people. The sitters have shared the experience of sitting for a portrait, but Ocean has illuminated something unique about each person-how they tilt their head or how they wear their shirt - with an immediacy that tethers the image to the day they visited the studio. "

Etching

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Black Love Chair,aquatint, 2004 Humphrey Ocean

In addition tohis portrait of Philip Larkin,he is perhaps best known for his iconic etching,Black Love Chair,which appeared on the cover ofPaul McCartney's 2007 albumMemory Almost Full.[7]This is an image McCartney chose from the series of etchings begun in 2003 when Ocean was working with Maurice Payne in Miankoma Studio in Amagansett, Long Island.

An armchair (page fromDot Book1999-2001) Humphrey Ocean

Dot Books

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In 2017 Ocean exhibitedDot Book 1inDrawing Togetherat theCourtauld GalleryLondon curated by Dr Ketty Gottardo and Dr Ben Thomas who wrote:

"Humphrey Ocean’s Dot Book also represents a type of artistic wayfaring, on a local scale, as it could be described as recording a notional trip to the supermarket where it becomes ‘impossible to get to Sainsbury’s’ because there are so many arresting motifs to discover along the way which prompt the thought ‘I like that and I want to tell somebody I saw that’. However, this is not a case of taking a line for a walk but of a series of vivid illuminations registered, as it were, at thirty miles an hour throughthe windscreen of a family estate car.The unremarkable objects, logos and snatched views of corners of suburbia collected together in this album of precise, crisply executed drawings are all 'perfectly ordinary' (to use the title of one of Ocean's exhibitions). "

Recent

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Roadsign, enamel on steel, 2015 Humphrey Ocean (for the50th Anniversary of the British Road Signexhibition at theDesign Museum)

Ocean was elected aRoyal Academicianin 2004. He wasRoyal AcademyProfessor of Perspective[8]2012 - 2020, a position once held byJ. M. W. Turner.

In 2013Lord Volvo and his Estate(1982) by Ocean was voted one of 57 of the nation’s favourite paintings and appeared on billboards around Britain in Art Everywhere organised by theArt Fund.[9]In 2014 he completed a portrait[10]ofRandy Lernerfor theNational Portrait Gallery.In the same year he advised on Turner's approach to perspective inMike Leigh’sfilmMr Turner.

In 2012 he was made anHonorary DoctorbyCanterbury Christ Church Universityand in 2015 an Honorary Doctor by University of Kent. Ocean designed a road sign for his friendMargaret Calvertfor the50th Anniversary of the British Road Signexhibition at theDesign Museum(2015) and showed inbooks + papers(2015),"Wären Fluss und Meere Tinte..."(2017) andbooks + papers 2(2019) at Christine Koenig Galerie, Vienna.[11]

For the BBC, onRadio 4he featured inWill GompertzGets Creative(2015), presentedThe EssayonRadio 3onImpington Village College(2016) andOnly ArtistswithMark Alexanderon Radio 4 (2018). In 2018 Ocean's solo exhibitionI've No Idea Eitherof works on paper and sculpture was atSims Reed Gallery London.In 2019 he had a solo exhibitionBirds, Cars and Chairsin the Keeper's House at theRoyal Academy of Arts.A 320 page full colourmonographof his work was published by the Royal Academy of Arts in autumn 2019. Simultaneously published by the RA isA Book of Birds by Humphrey Ocean.In 2020 he showed his paintingSelfinMe, Myself, Iat Christine Koenig Galerie, Vienna.Fresh as Paint,Ocean's personal selection of objects and art from the school collections was shown atEton Collegein 2022.

In 2023 four of his seven works recently acquired by theBritish Museumwere displayed inNew Acquisitionsin the Prints and Drawings gallery.

Humphrey Ocean is married to artist Miranda Argyle and has two daughters, Ruby and Beatrice. He lives and works in south London.

Collections

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His art is featured in several collections, includingBritish Museum, London;Victoria and Albert Museum, London;British Council;The Whitworth,University of Manchester;Wolverhampton Art Gallery;National Portrait Gallery, London;National Galleries Scotland: Portrait, Edinburgh;Government Art Collection.

Solo exhibitions

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References

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  1. ^"Birthday's today".Telegraph.co.uk. 22 June 2011. Archived fromthe originalon 23 June 2011.Retrieved21 June2014.Mr Humphrey Ocean, painter, 60
  2. ^Mercury/Phonogram cat. no. SRM 1-1029.
  3. ^Capitol/EMI cat. no. SW-11525.
  4. ^"National Portrait Gallery - Person - Humphrey Ocean".Npg.org.uk. 27 May 1976.Retrieved16 April2015.
  5. ^[1]Archived13 June 2011 at theWayback Machine
  6. ^"Humphrey Ocean".Ucreative.ac.uk. Archived fromthe originalon 2 December 2010.Retrieved16 April2015.
  7. ^[2]Archived16 September 2008 at theWayback Machine
  8. ^"Humphrey Ocean - National Portrait Gallery".
  9. ^"Lord Volvo and His Estate".Artuk.org.Retrieved6 May2020.
  10. ^"Randolph ('Randy') Lerner - National Portrait Gallery".Npg.org.uk.
  11. ^"BBC Arts - Get Creative - Pottery, poetry, pop-songs and paint: Will Gompertz gets creative".Bbc.co.uk.8 July 2015.Retrieved6 May2020.
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