Everything about William Coldstream totally explained
Sir
William Menzies Coldstream (
February 28,
1908 –
February 18,
1987) was a British
realist painter and a long standing art teacher.==Biography==
Born in
Northumberland, he grew up in
London and studied at the
Slade School of Art,
University College London where he met and married
Nancy Sharp. He co-founded the
Euston Road School with
Graham Bell and others in
1937. He enlisted in the
Royal Artillery at the start of the war but he was appointed a
War Artist in
1943, working in Egypt and Italy.
In
1949 he returned to lead the Slade School as Professor of Fine Art, and, in
1952 he became a
CBE. He was Chairman of the National Advisory Council on Art Education between
1958 and
1971. He was also Chairman of the
British Film Institute from
1964 to
1971 (he had worked with
John Grierson in the
GPO Film Unit for a few years in the
1930s). He retired from the Slade School in
1975 and continued to paint until a couple of years before his death.
Method and works
Coldstream was committed to painting directly from life. His type of realism had its basis in careful measurement, carried out by the following method: standing before the subject to be painted, a brush is held upright at arm's length. With one eye closed, the artist can, by sliding a thumb up or down the brush handle, take the measure of an object or interval. This finding is compared against other objects or intervals, with the brush still kept at arm's length. Informed by such measurements, the artist can paint what the eye sees without the use of conventional
perspective. The surfaces of Coldstream's paintings carry many small horizontal and vertical markings, where he recorded these coordinates so that they could be verified against reality.
As a result of his painstaking methods, Coldstream worked slowly, often taking scores of sittings over several months to complete a work. His subjects include still-life, landscapes which are usually urban, portraits, and the female nude.
The
Tate Gallery has several of his paintings.
Further Information
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