Jack Crabtree (artist)
{{short description|English painter}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Jack Crabtree
| image =
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| birth_name =
| birth_date = 1938
| birth_place = Rochdale, Lancashire, UK
| death_date =
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| field = {{Flatlist|
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| training = {{Plainlist|
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| movement =
| works =
| patrons = National Coal Board
| awards =
| elected = 56 Group Wales
}}
Jack Crabtree is a contemporary English figurative painter and teacher. He is known for a series of paintings documenting the South Wales coal industry.
Early life and education
Crabtree was born in 1938 in Rochdale, Lancashire, England. He studied at the following art colleges:
Career
After leaving the Royal Academy, Crabtree lived and worked for a number of years in Rochdale and Salford and then at Newport in South Wales, before taking up an appointment at the University of Ulster in Belfast. He retired to North Wales in 1994.
He was elected a member of the 56 Group Wales (1971–75).
To date Crabtree has had over 70 solo exhibitions. His work can be found in many public collections.{{cite web|title=Jack Crabtree|url=http://www.artinwales.250x.com/ArtistsCra.htm|website=Art in Wales|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303185811/http://www.artinwales.250x.com/ArtistsCra.htm|archive-date=3 March 2016}}
Style
Crabtree's style was described in 1978 by Margaret Richards of Tribune:
"Crabtree is a social realist who works in a natural style that is neither didactic nor over-emphatic. Sometimes his imagery is exhilarating, full of energetic figures, and sometimes sad and sensitive, showing old or weary men struggling to keep going. His vision is affectionate rather than romantic. He sees wild hillsides as a beautiful setting for one of the grimmest jobs facing any man. In his paintings, that beauty and that grimness are parts of an inter-locking reality that has stimulated his creative imagination; while in his graphics the spare outlines and meticulous observation of human nature has been likened to George Grosz's. The comparison is misleading, for Crabtree's sense of humour rarely turns into satire."{{citation| last =Richards | first =Margaret | title = Jack Crabtree Face to Face| publisher = SVR Essen & Welsh Arts Council Cardiff | year =1978 | location =London | page = 12 }}
Teaching
1961–66: Salford School of Art, and teaching in schools in the Salford and Rochdale area.
1966–74: Lecturer at the College of Art in Newport.
1978- : Senior Lecturer at the Gwent College of Further Education
1983–86: Professor and Head of Fine Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast.
Public collections
Crabree's work is in several public collections, including:
- Arts Council of Ireland
- Arts Council of Northern Ireland
- Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Swansea{{cite web|title=Save This Pit|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/save-this-pit-226946|publisher=Art UK|access-date=6 March 2014}}
- Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool{{cite web|title=portrait-of-the-artist|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/portrait-of-the-artist-150557|publisher=Art UK}}
- National Coal Mining Museum for England, Wakefield{{cite web|title=Four Colliers in the Showers|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/four-colliers-in-the-showers-21467|publisher=Art UK|access-date=6 March 2014}}
- National Library of Wales{{cite web|title=Jack Crabtree|url=http://wales.aquabrowser.com/default.ashx?q=jack+crabtree|publisher=National Library of Wales|access-date=6 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160126072601/http://wales.aquabrowser.com/default.ashx?q=jack+crabtree|archive-date=26 January 2016|url-status=dead}}
- National Museum Cardiff{{cite web|title=Art Collections Online - Crabtree, Jack|url=http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/art/online/?action=show_works&item=159&type=artist|publisher=National Museum Wales|access-date=6 March 2014}}
- National Trust{{cite web|title=A View through the Window of Patterson's Spade Mill|url=http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/226277|publisher=National Trust|access-date=6 March 2014}}
- Newport Museum and Art Gallery{{cite web|title=In The Showers|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/in-the-showers-156234|publisher=Art UK|access-date=6 March 2014}}
- Ulster Museum{{cite web|title=Portrait of Brian Friel|url=http://www.nmni.com/Home/Online-Collections/Art/Paintings/BELUM-U4707|publisher=National Museums Northern Ireland|access-date=6 March 2014|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140306024816/http://www.nmni.com/Home/Online-Collections/Art/Paintings/BELUM-U4707|archive-date=6 March 2014|url-status=dead}}
- University of South Wales (Glamorgan){{citation needed|date=March 2015}}
Awards
1959/60: Kenyon's Foundation Rochdale Education Authority travelling bursary to France.
1974/75: Fellowship at the National Coal Board.
1975/76: Gregynog Arts Fellowship, University of Wales.
1977/78: First International Ruhr Arts Fellowship awarded by the West German Government.
Notable commissions
1971: Artist at Work - murals on the theme of Owain Glyndŵr for the Council Chambers at Plas, Machynlleth.
1974/75: for the National Coal Board, a pictorial record of the changing face of the coalfields of South Wales.
1992/93: Commissioned by the National Trust to record Patterson's Spade Mill, Northern Ireland, pre-restoration.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Art UK bio}}
- {{cite web|title=Jack Crabtree|url=http://www.artinwales.250x.com/ArtistsCra.htm|website=Art in Wales|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303185811/http://www.artinwales.250x.com/ArtistsCra.htm|archive-date=3 March 2016}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20081011142126/http://www.artscouncil-ni.org/collection/artists/art31.htm "Portrait of Francis Stuart (1990)" at Arts Council of Northern Ireland]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20150402153429/http://education.gtj.org.uk/item.php?lang=en&id=28621&t=1 "In the Showers" at Gathering the Jewels.org]
- {{cite web|title=Artist Jack Crabtree reunited with south Wales coal paintings|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-21465622|publisher=BBC|format=Video|date=15 February 2013|access-date=6 March 2014}}
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Category:20th-century English painters
Category:English male painters
Category:21st-century English painters
Category:English modern painters
Category:Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art
Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools
Category:Academics of Ulster University
Category:People from Newport, Wales
Category:Artists from Rochdale
Category:Members of the 56 Group Wales