Anthony Green NEAC RA Hon RBA Hon ROI (1939 - 2023)

Statement

In 1957, Anthony Green fell in love with a Slade student. They married in 1961. Since then, Mary Cozens-Walker has been the inspiration for 600 narrative paintings. Sometimes the subjects are sad, dealing with death, dementia and divorce. More often, he paints love, joy and sexual fulfilment. Mary is the star of his story. Their daughters’ lives are lovingly recorded. He deals with childhood and old age. He imagines his mother as a teenager, and records her passage to Heaven. He loves painting flowers, and has accepted commissions to paint portraits, cars, jet engines, barns and Burgundy connoisseurs.

Methodology

Anthony Green makes large, irregularly shaped pictures, in oil paint on battened, primed boards. In love, in Paris, on a French government scholarship, and soon to return to marry Miss Cozens-Walker, our hero resolved to paint about his virginity and married love, rather than art about art. He would make his contribution to Modernism by telling his small private story in pictures – la petite histoire par un petit maître – simply a little history by a jobbing artist. Figurative art would still be relevant. The pictures in his mind’s eye had no edges. His compositions need not be traditional rectangles. His first shaped painting was made in 1964, influenced by images seen in Early Italian Gothic arches and French Romanesque tympanums. Perhaps his developing compositions might have irrelevant perimeters? Paintings fashioned by the multiplicity of pictures in his memory. Art would simply serve his needs.

Bio

1939 Born in Luton

1956-60 Studied at the Slade School of Fine Art

1961 - Married Mary Cozens-Walker, who became his muse

1971 Elected to The Royal Academy

1991 Elected a Fellow of University College, London

2000-08 Appointed a Trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts

2002 Elected a Member of the New English Art Club

2003 Featured Artist at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Memberships

Royal Academy

London Group