Michael Kidner RA
Born: 11 September 1917, Kettering, England
Elected RA: 26 May 2004
Category of Membership: Painter
Michael Kidner RA, Creationism? Michael Kidner read History and Anthropology at Cambridge University from 1936 to 1939 before studying landscape architecture at Ohio State University from 1940 to 1941. After five years in the Canadian army he trained himself as an artist and moved to Paris. He first came to prominence in the 1960s following his first solo exhibition at St Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1959. Kidner’s distinctive style was formed after he came under the influence of the American Expressionists. He was a pioneer in the Op Art movement.
The Serpentine Gallery, London held a retrospective in 1984, thereby introducing a new generation of British artists to his work. Kidner is also a leading sculptor and printmaker and has worked with computer generated images. In many of his two- and three-dimensional works he uses a colour-coded pattern which distorts the viewer’s typical habits of perception.
Recent solo exhibitions
2007 Flowers East, London
2006 Galaria Muzalewska, Glogowska, Poznan, Poland
2003 Flowers East, London
2002 Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Venice
2001 Flowers East, London
Hubert Winter Gallery, Vienna, Austria
1999 Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
1997 Belgrave Gallery, London
Emilia Slusis Gallery, Ettlingen, Germany
1996 Flowers East, London
1995 Tate Gallery, London
Galerie Emilia Suciu, Ettlingen, Germany
1994 Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences, London
1993 Oddziat Museum, Rezydeancji Ksiezymlyn, Museum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
Barbican Art Gallery, London
1992 Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria
1991 Galerie Bismark, Bremen
1990 Centre for International Contemporary Arts, New York City
1986 Tate Gallery, London
1977 Royal Academy of Arts, London
Public collections
Cass Sculpture Foundation
Tate Modern, London
Publications
Michael Kidner: Love is a Virus from Outer Space, Flowers East, 2003
M_ichael Kidner: Painting, drawing, sculpture 1959-1984_, Michael Kidner, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1984
Contact details for further information
Email membershipoffice@royalacademy.org.uk
