Terry Atkinson
Born – Thurnscoe, England 1939
Terry Atkinson has an established reputation as a painter, lecturer, writer and activist whose radical artistic methods and theoretical views have made him a prominent figure in the Conceptual Art movement in Britain. He studied in 1959 at Barnsley School of Art and at the Slade School of Art in London from 1960-64. Atkinson’s art is most clearly identified by his involvement from 1968 with Art & Language, of which he was a founding member with Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell and David Bainbridge. Based on Marxist theory and Wittgensteinian philosophy and working as a corporate identity, their strategies for production were textually based examinations of art’s role in society and the critical arena. Their work, encouraged and influenced by American artist Joseph Kosuth, aimed to make clear “that art is didactic as opposed to transcendental”. Atkinson left the group in 1975 and has since concentrated in writing and series of paintings that incorporate personal, political and historical elements. Daughter having returned from an armed mission being greeted by her mother near a Christmas wreath, the full title of Bunker in Armagh. 17, is one of a number of works based on British attitude to Northern Ireland. “The whole idea of the bunker,” he said, “was a metaphor for my own fixed positions.”
Masterpieces:
- The Stone-Touchers 1
- Distemper Yellow Axe-Head Enola Gay Mute
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About terry atkinson
Happy Hour: relax and enjoy ATK-605
Terry Atkinson
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Terrys Shortcut Quilt Collection
Terry Atkinson
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Time Out Quilts
Terry Atkinson
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