B A S I L - B E A T T I E

1935
born in West Hartlepool
Studied at the Royal Academy Schools

Collections include

Arts Council Collection, London; BUPA; Birmingham City Art Gallery; Contemporary Art Society, London; Deutsche Bank, London; Government Art Collection, London; NatWest Group Art Collection; Saatchi Collection, London; Swindon Museum and Art Gallery; Tate Gallery, London; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester


Awards

1976
Major Arts Council Award
1986
Athena Awards winner
1989
John Moores - 2nd Prize-winner
1998
Shortlist Jerwood Painting Prize
1999
Nordstern Print Prize, Royal Academy
2001
Shortlist Jerwood Painting Prize

"...Basil Beattie has long been widely admired for his handling of paint, whose plastic possibilities he deploys with an unassuming sense of assurance. The surface of a Beattie painting passes from the thickest of impastos with a grace which never falls into pastiche. Despite this sense of command there has always been an astringency in his response to paint's materiality. he has a deliberate, blunt way with the restricted range of sombre earth colours he normally employs. The balance he strikes between a kind of northern asceticism and voluptuous revelry in the paint is one of the ready pleasures of his painting..."

Extract from Ur-Architecture and The Sign
by Nick de Ville published in Contemporary Visual Arts, Issue 21



"...Beattie’s work is 'abstract' in its concern with materials and technical procedure - but uses repeated symbols, especially stairs and tunnels, to
create the very different tensions and moods evoked by the titles. He speaks of the blank canvas around the painted ideogram as a 'place to breathe' rather than as 'space'; his art is the visualisation of states of mind, in which images are more compelling or calming than words."

John McEwen
The Sunday Telegraph, 16 September 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond the Blue Yonder 2004 oil and wax on flax 275 x 230cm