Patrick Procktor RA

Patrick Procktor RA (1936–2003) was one of the most distinctive British artists to emerge in the 1960s. Closely associated with David Hockney and the wider circle of artists, designers and writers who shaped the visual culture of the decade, he first came to prominence with expressive paintings of the male figure before becoming one of the leading British watercolourists of his generation.

Born in Dublin and raised in London, Procktor was taught by Kyffin Williams at Highgate School. In 1957, while still in his early twenties, he had a still life accepted for The Redfern Gallery’s annual Summer Exhibition. The encouragement proved decisive, and the following year he entered the Slade School of Fine Art, where he studied under William Coldstream and Keith Vaughan and became part of a talented generation that included Roger Cook, Mario Dubsky and Philip Prowse.

Soon after graduating, Procktor’s work was seen by Bryan Robertson, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, who recommended him to The Redfern Gallery. His first solo exhibition there in 1963 was a remarkable success. These early paintings, frequently centred on the male nude, combined expressive handling with elongated and distorted forms. In 1964 Procktor was included in Robertson’s landmark exhibition The New Generation at the Whitechapel Gallery alongside artists including Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, John Hoyland and Bridget Riley.

A second Redfern exhibition followed in 1965. During the later 1960s Procktor’s work became progressively lighter and more fluid, and by 1967 he had begun working extensively in watercolour. His portraits from this period, with their elegant attenuated figures and spare use of colour, established the style for which he became particularly celebrated. Friends, artists and figures from the worlds of fashion and theatre became frequent subjects, including Ossie Clark, Cecil Beaton and Derek Jarman.

Travel became increasingly central to Procktor’s work. From 1970 he made extended painting journeys to India, Venice, Morocco, Egypt and elsewhere, producing luminous watercolours in which architecture and landscape were reduced to seemingly effortless passages of colour and line. Many of these works were subsequently translated into aquatint, establishing printmaking as an important parallel strand of his practice.

In 1980 Procktor travelled extensively through China on an officially sanctioned visit arranged through diplomatic contacts in London. Travelling with a guide and driver, he spent eight weeks on the mainland, visiting Guangzhou, Guilin, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing and Beijing. The journey resulted in fifty-nine watercolours and a celebrated series of aquatints, first exhibited at The Redfern Gallery later that year.

Procktor continued to work across painting, watercolour and printmaking throughout his career and was elected a Royal Academician in 1996. Since his death in 2003 his reputation has undergone significant reassessment. Important exhibitions have included a retrospective at Huddersfield Art Gallery in 2012, Patrick Procktor: The Last Romantic at Arts University Bournemouth in 2016, and A View from a Window at Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna. His work was also included in Tate Britain’s major survey of watercolour in 2011 and Queer British Art 1861–1967 in 2017.

The Redfern Gallery’s association with Procktor extended across his entire career, from his first appearance in the gallery’s Summer Exhibition in 1957 and his breakthrough solo show of 1963 to numerous subsequent exhibitions of his paintings, watercolours and prints. More recently, the gallery has continued to reassess and promote his work through exhibitions and publications devoted to his paintings and graphic work.

The Estate of Patrick Procktor is represented by The Redfern Gallery.

View a sample of the Patrick Procktor: The Complete Prints catalogue raisonné