Tribute to former London Group President by Victoria Bartlett LG
Adrian Bartlett 1939 – 2024
Adrian Bartlett, painter, printmaker, writer and internationally exhibited artist is widely represented in public and private collections in the USA, China, Australia, Poland, Greece and Berlin as well as in The British Museum, The Ashmolean, The Arts Council collection and others in the UK.
He was elected a member of The London Group in 1979, serving as its President from 1993 to 1995. He was involved in organising numerous exhibitions for the London Group including the Barbican Concourse, the Michael Parkin Gallery, The Morley Gallery and The Walk Gallery.
He was Chairman of the Printmakers Council in 1976 and was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 1997.
Educated at Bedales School, Camberwell School of Art and the University of Durham, he was active among the group of post-Second World War artists who, from the 1960s, promoted artists’ original prints as a unique and accessible art form to a wider public.
As a teacher, he was generous in giving time and encouragement to students. He was head of printmaking at Morley College and visiting lecturer at Wimbledon and Chelsea Schools of Art, London and Oxford University. He was Director of Morley Gallery from 1979 to 1997.
In 1982 he published ‘Drawing and Painting the Landscape’ (Phaidon ) and in 1983 ‘British Art in the Eighties’ with John Boulton-Smith (Art and Culture, Bergen).
In his later years his work reflected a lifetime study of the past masters of painting and the printed image, his observations of people and their environment. The influences of classical art, travel, in particular his frequent time in Greece, his love of the sea, landscapes, the play of light and his enduring interest in the human form and moving figures dominated his work.
He enjoyed the company of friends.
Victoria Bartlett LG, 2024
