Mark Lancaster (1938–2021) was a British painter whose work developed from the abstract and colour-based painting of the 1960s into a more personal language combining pattern, landscape, decorative motifs and references to architecture and place.

Born in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, Lancaster studied at Newcastle College of Art and later at the University of Reading. During the 1960s he became closely involved with the contemporary art world in London and New York. He worked for a period as an assistant to Bridget Riley and travelled to the United States, where he formed friendships with leading American artists including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. He later worked as studio assistant to Johns in New York.

Lancaster’s early paintings reflected his interest in colour, repeated motifs and the formal possibilities of abstraction. Over time, however, his work became increasingly connected to particular places and environments, drawing on gardens, architecture, travel and the decorative arts. Pattern and ornament became central elements, often structured through repeated geometric or botanical forms.

In the 1970s Lancaster formed a close friendship with Bryan Ferry, and the two remained part of the same wider artistic and cultural milieu in which painting, music, fashion and design frequently overlapped. This friendship became one of Lancaster’s most enduring personal connections within the creative world of the period.

Travel remained an important source throughout Lancaster’s career. His paintings drew on experiences of Britain, France, Italy, Greece and the United States, with architectural details, gardens and landscape frequently transformed into flattened fields of colour and pattern. His work often moved between abstraction and recognisable imagery without settling fully into either.

Alongside painting, Lancaster worked on a number of decorative and architectural projects and maintained a longstanding interest in the relationship between fine and applied art. His work was exhibited in Britain, Europe and the United States and is held in public and private collections internationally.

The Redfern Gallery has exhibited and handled Lancaster’s work as part of its continuing interest in post-war and contemporary British painting.