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Born: 18 September 1950, Paisley, Scotland
Elected: 24 May 2012
Category: Painter
As a teenager Jock McFadyen attended Saturday morning classes at Glasgow School of Art. In 1966, at the age of 15, he moved to England and was educated at Chelsea School of Art gaining his BA in 1976 and MA in 1977. He also taught one day a week at the Slade School of Art between 1980 and 2005.
Jock McFadyen, 'Buffalo Grill'. Oil. 172 × 259 cm.
In 1981 McFadyen was appointed Artist in Residence at the National Gallery in London. His paintings from the early eighties were populated by the waifs and stays of pre Canary Wharf London, he always said that the figures in his work were not inventions but sightings of individuals and events of the time. In 1991, Jock was commissioned by the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum to record events surrounding the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and in 1992, he designed sets and costumes for Kenneth MacMillan’s The Judas Tree, Royal Opera House in 1992. It was at this point that the figure fell away from McFadyen’s work and the full-blown landscape, often a serious comment on life in the modern urban environment, and on a monumental scale, emerged and continues to preoccupy him to this day.
In 2005 he collaborated with his wife Susie Honeyman to create The Grey Gallery, to work with artists, writers and musicians on a project by project basis with the aim to work across all disciplines. Jock currently lives and works in London and Edinburgh. Jock has had over 40 solo exhibitions and his work is held by 30 public collections as well as private and corporate collections in Britain and abroad. Two of his works can be seen in Room IV of this year’s Summer Exhibition.
Watch an interview with Jock McFadyen on the RA Magazine Blog
Recent Solo Exhibitions
2012 Eleven Spitalfields, London
The Fine Art Society, London
The Fleming Collection, London
Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh
2011 Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh
2010 Clifford Chance, London
2009 The Grey Gallery, London
2007 11 Princelet Street, London
The Grey Gallery, London
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
The Grey Gallery, Edinburgh Festival
2005 Roadworks, Rude Wercs, London
Roadworks, Scottish Gallery Projects, Edinburgh Festival
2001 Agnew’s, London
Public Collections
Amnesty International
Arts Council of Great Britain
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
BBC
Bede Gallery, Jarrow
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
British Council
British Museum
City of Edinburgh
Cleveland Gallery, Middlesbrough
Contemporary Art Society
Glasgow Art Galleries
The Government Art Collection
The Guildhall, London
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow
The Imperial War Museum
Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Leicester Education Authority
Lillie Art Gallery, Glasgow
Manchester City Art Gallery
The Museum of London
The National Gallery, London
Scottish Arts Council
Sheffield City Art Gallery
Tate Gallery, London
The Theatre Museum, London
University of Dundee
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Walsall Museum and Art Gallery
Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
Wolverhampton City Art Gallery
Worcester Art Gallery
Publications
2001 Beyond Turners Road publication to accompany solo exhibition at Agnew’s, London, with story commissioned from Iain Sinclair
Jock McFadyen, A Book About a Painter, monograph by David Cohen with contributions from other authors, published by Lund Humphries
1999 From Orkney and Other Places, publication to accompany solo exhibition for St Magnus Festival at Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, prose commissioned from Will Self
1998 Looking Out To Sea, catalogue for solo Edinburgh Festival exhibition at Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh, with an essay by Duncan Macmillan
1991 Fragments from Berlin, catalogue for solo exhibition at Imperial War Museum London, Kelvingrove Glasgow and Manchester City Art Gallery, with foreword by Angela Weight and essay by Tom Lubbock
Canal, catalogue for solo exhibition at William Jackson Gallery, London, with an introduction by Jeffery Camp and an essay by Howard Jacobson
1989 Jock McFadyen, catalogue for solo exhibition at Forum, Hamburg, with an essay by Mary Rose Beaumont
1986 Jock McFadyen Paintings, catalogue for solo touring exhibition organised by the Northern Centre for contemporary Art, with an essay by Lewis Biggs, ‘Realism in Art, or a slap in the face with a wet Kipper’
1978 Jock McFadyen, paintings drawings titles, catalogue for solo exhibition at New 57 Gallery, Edinburgh, with introductions by artists Jim Latter and Simon Read
