Tom Phillips RA

Born: 24 May 1937, London, UK
Elected ARA: 9 May 1984
Elected RA: 7 December 1989
Category of Membership: Printmaker

From Life: Song of Myself (detail) by Tom Phillips RA From Life: Song of Myself (detail) by Tom Phillips RA From Life: Song of Myself (detail) by Tom Phillips RATom Phillips, whose web site www.tomphillips.co.uk gives a full overview of his work, was born in London in 1937. He attended St Catherine’s College, Oxford in 1957, where he read English and at the same time studied drawing at the Ruskin School. In 1961 he went to Camberwell School of Art where his chief source of inspiration was Frank Auerbach. He went on to teach at Bath Academy of Art, Ipswich and Wolverhampton Art College between 1965 and 1972.

Phillips’s first solo show was in 1965 at the Artists International Association Gallery in London, followed by an exhibition at the Angela Flowers Gallery in 1970. He won a prize at The John Moores Liverpool Exhibition in 1969 and subsequently went on to exhibit in many solo and group exhibitions around the world. Two early exhibitions of particular significance were the 1973 showing of 'A Humument' in its entirety at the ICA, London and the 1975 retrospective at the Kunsthalle in Basel. In 1989 he had a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (which holds his portrait of Dame Iris Murdoch) and in 1993 a major exhibition of his work was held at the Royal Academy of Arts. To celebrate his 60th birthday in 1997, retrospectives of his work were held at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the South London Gallery. More recently in 2001 an exhibition of his drawings was held at the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth.

Phillips was Vice-Chair of the Copyright Council from 1985 to 1989 and has been Chairman of the Royal Academy’s Exhibitions Committee since 1995. He curated the Royal Academy’s exhibition 'Africa: The Art of a Continent' (1995) which subsequently travelled to the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He was appointed a Member of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers and Engravers in 1987 and an Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1999. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Leeds University (Bretton Hall) and the London Institute as well as an Honorary Member of the Royal Institute, a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery (since 1998) and a Trustee of the British Museum (since 1999). Phillips is also a writer and a composer. Much of his music (including the opera Irma) has been broadcast and is available on CD. Tom Phillips lives and works in London.

Recent solo exhibitions
2013 Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Mass, US
2007 Dean Gallery, Edinburgh
Williamson Museum and Art Gallery, Birkenhead
2006 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
2003 Galerie Tapcarias, Lisbon
2001 Modern Art Museum: The Modern at Sundance Square, Fort Worth, Texas
2000 Members’ Room, Royal Institution, London
1998 Massimo Valsecchi, Milan
1997 Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
South London Gallery, London
1996 Galerie Schoen & Nalepa, Berlin
Cheltenham Festival of Literature
1994 Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
Laurence Batley Gallery, Leeds
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
1993 Fenderesky Gallery at Queens, Belfast
PENN, University of Pennsylvania
Aldeburgh Cinema, Suffolk
Dartington International Summer School, Totnes
Collyer Bristow Art Gallery, London
The Bar Convent Trust, York
Carpenter Center for The Visual Arts, Harvard University
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
1992 Galerie Reckermann, Cologne
NCSU Centerstage, Raleigh, North Carolina
Marita Gilliam Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina
Theatre National, Brussels
National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Royal Academy of Arts, Sackler Galleries, London
Flowers East, London
Angela Flowers at Silver Place, London
Smith Jariwala Gallery, London
Berggruen & Zevi, London
1990 L’Hotel de Region, Rouen
Kunsthalle, Basel
North Carolina Museum of Art
Minsky’s Studio, New York
Kings Lynn Festival of Music and Art
Tate Gallery, London (lecture)
Maria Gilliam Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina
Mead Gallery, University of Warwick

Public collections
Tate Gallery, London
British Museum, London
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
National Portrait Gallery, London
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
British Council
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Library of Congress, United States
Bibiotheque Nationale, Paris
North Carolina Museum of Art, United States

Contact details for further information
Email membershipoffice@royalacademy.org.uk

• Royal Academy of Arts