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Keith Grant (born Liverpool 1930) is a local boy who has taken the natural world as his subject. From early years entranced by the countries of the North, he visited Iceland and Norway and painted the aurora borealis, icebergs and glaciers. But he also explored the tropics and the desert, travelling to French Guiana, Cameroon, Sarawak, Israel and Guyana, and painting the very different landscapes of rainforest, sand and rock. In 1996 he settled in Norway, and is still painting with undiminished energy and authority, now in his 95th year.

The Atkinson owns two of his paintings and this exhibition builds on the fact that Keith’s earliest years were spent near Southport. Indeed he studied at Bootle School of Art and held his first exhibition as a professional artist in Bootle. If he has gone on to become a painter of international reputation, he has never forgotten his roots. This exhibition pays tribute to his life’s achievement with some paintings and a group of fascinating working drawings, made over the last 70 years.

This is his first showing in a British public gallery since his retrospective at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1994.

FREE ENTRY

Book

Keith Grant by Judith LeGrove

£49.95 – Available from The Atkinson Shop

Keith Grant’s lifelong fascination with the natural world has drawn him towards elemental landscapes in Norway, Iceland, the tropics and Antarctica. Reflecting these experiences, the subjects of his paintings range from the English landscape, where his interest began in the 1950s, to volcanoes and glaciers, rainforests, the sea and the night sky, encountered from dramatically varied viewpoints. While most consistently attracted to northerly territories (he has lived in Norway since 1996), he continues to explore new ways of approaching his imagery. Music and poetry provide particular inspiration, as do history and mythology. Through such lenses, Grant encourages us to look again at nature, and to value more than ever its fragile beauty.

Judith LeGrove is a writer and curator specialising in 20th-century and contemporary art, especially sculpture. Her current research includes the sculpture of Kenneth Draper and John Hoskin, the paintings of Jeremy Gardiner, and sculpture and prints of Egon Altdorf. She has published reviews in the ‘Sculpture Journal’, ‘Museum Journal’ and ‘The Art Newspaper’. Recent books include ‘Geoffrey Clarke: Catalogue Rasionné’.

Pages: 224
Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd
Publication Date: 29th September 2023
Trim Size: 24.9 x 27 mm
Illustrations Note: Includes 140 colour and 40 b&w illustrations
ISBN: 9781848226272

Exhibition Reviews

Review by Jo Manby for The Fourdrinier

‘…Whichever direction he is going in, the pictorial articulation he delivers is always engaging and compelling. Whether in an utterance of calm and solitude, frenetic disruption, or the sheer beauty of the north’s ‘divine geometry’, Grant’s work is calling you.’

Read the full review: thefourdrinier.com

 

 

Review by Kirsty Dukes for Corridor8

‘… Grant has always been interested in the narcissistic nature of water in allowing nature to reflect and distort itself. In saying this, he equates nature with the very human activity of regarding its own reflection, personifying the natural world.’

Read the full review: corridor8.co.uk

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