Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1959 Cape Town, South Africa

Year of Migration to the UK: 1980

Biography

Painter and teacher Ansel Krut was born of Jewish heritage in Cape Town, South Africa in 1959. His art studies included a BA in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 1979–82, and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from 1982–83. This was immediately followed by an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London from 1983–86, during which he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1985. He then won an Abbey Major Scholarship in Painting to study at the British School in Rome, Italy between 1986 and 1987. He chose to remain in London thereafter.

Following his art training, in 1989 Krut held his first solo show, Ansel Krut: New Paintings, in London's Fischer Fine Art, a gallery established in 1972 by Viennese émigré, Harry Fischer, and his son, Wolfgang. The same year Krut also exhibited at Fischer with Zimbabwe-born painter, Yolanda Sonnabend, followed by a two-person show with German painter Richard Oelze in 1990. In 1993 his painting The Paschal Lamb (1990) was presented to the Ben Uri Collection. The 1990s saw Krut establish himself as a successful painter in London, holding a solo show, also called Ansel Krut: New Paintings, at Gillian Jason Gallery in 1994, followed by Ansel Krut: The Consolations of Orpheus and Other Stories, at Jason & Rhodes Gallery in 1998. In the same year his work featured in Cries & Whispers: New Works for the British Council Collection and Characters from the Bible, Ben Uri Gallery. The paintings in this period signalled Krut’s gradual yet explicit movement away from his initial interest in a classical style and towards ‘a more anarchic subject matter’, citing Goya, Georges Braque and the German Expressionists among many more (Wyatt, 2014). He began developing the technique of constructing surfaces with layers of colourful paint, frequently showcasing visual characteristics such as fans, vortexes, geometric angles, and dynamic and suggestive organic shapes. In 2002 he won 2nd Prize for his work Heartless Roach, in the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2002 touring exhibition, which was presented in UK locations including the Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham and Glasgow School of Art in 2003. The drawing depicted what Krut described as ‘a handful of rubber bands which have fallen haphazardly to form the outline of the drawing’ (Monaghan, 2003).

During the 2000s Krut developed his teaching career. Krut was a Drawing Fellow at Wimbledon College of Art between 2005 and 2007; in 2006 he was appointed Visiting Lecturer in Painting at the RCA; from 2004-12 he was an artist-lecturer at the National Gallery, London, and a visiting teacher at the Royal Drawing School (2022). In 2016 he was a judge for the annual John Moores Painting Prize. He also began to exhibit more regularly, holding a number of solo exhibitions in London, and abroad, including in the USA, and The Netherlands. In 2007 he painted his Bendy Balloons self-portrait, described by himself as ‘ridiculous’ yet ‘sinister’: ‘no matter how many times you puncture and deflate it you know it will leeringly inflate again, rather like the murderous psychopath you are convinced you have finally drowned in the bath but who rises up again the moment your back is turned’ (Carey-Kent, 2009). Characterised by his playful ambiguity, Krut’s paintings in his solo show at London's Modern Art in 2010 were described as disrupting ‘the traditionally straight-faced genre of the still life by bolting together objects to create improbable human forms that inspire not only humour but also pity, scorn or repulsion’ (Griffin, 2010). Later, in an interview related to his solo show Ansel Krut: Verbatim at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings in 2014, Krut was questioned about the parallels between his subject matter and his growing up during apartheid South Africa. Careful to avoid ‘such a crude comparison’, he agreed ‘to an extent that his paintings represent a darker side of humanity that has been influenced by his upbringing’. ‘Because I was white and growing up in a morally questionable environment’, he stated, ‘it made me uncomfortable about moral certainties and what action to take about them’ (Wyatt, 2014).

Krut continued to show in London exhibitions such as Painter’s Painters at the Saatchi Gallery in 2016 and 'The Art I Live With, The Things I Love' by Ansel Krut at Claas Reiss in 2022. His works can be considered to be ‘cartoon noir’, executed in delicately muddled oils and with motifs, including referencing Cubism and Futurism (Perry, 2010). Ansel Krut continues to live and work in London. His works are held in various UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, British Council Collection, Government Art Collection and the RCA Collection.

Related books

'Matt Lippiatt in Conversation with Ansel Krut', Turps Magazine, Iss. 21, 2019, pp. 36-46
Ansel Krut and Nigel Cooke, Ansel Krut (Köln: König, 2011)
Robbert Roos et.al., Ansel Krut: Schilderijen [Paintings] (Amersfoort: Kunsthal KAdE, 2011)
Paul Carey-Kent, 'Surrogate Self-Portraits: Me Myself and I', Art World, Aug/Sep 2009, pp. 42-45
Helen Monaghan, 'Jerwood Drawing Prize 2002', The List, 2 January 2003, Iss. 458, p. 67
Ansel Krut, The Consolations of Orpheus and Other Stories (London: Jason & Rhodes, 1998)
Ansel Krut: New Paintings, exhib. cat. (London: Gillian Jason Gallery, 1994)

Public collections

Related organisations

Abbey Major Scholarship (recipient)
British School in Rome (student) (student)
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (student) (student)
Jerwood Drawing Prize (recipient)
John Moores painting Prize (judge) (judge)
National Gallery, London (artist-lecturer) (artist-lecturer)
Royal College of Art, London (student and lecturer) (student and lecturer)
Royal Drawing School (visiting artist) (visiting artist)
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (student) (student)
Wimbledon College of Art, London (drawing fellow) (drawing fellow)

Selected exhibitions

'The Art I Live With, The Things I Love' by Ansel Krut, Claas Reiss, London (2022)
Back to Back Balloons, Marlborough, New York (2019)
Painter's Painters, Saatchi Gallery, London (2016)
Solo exhibition, Modern Art, London (2014)
Ansel Krut: Verbatim, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2014)
Solo exhibition, Modern Art, London (2010)
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London (2010)
Homeless & Hidden 2: World Class Collection Homeless & Hidden, Ben Uri Gallery, London (2009)
We're Moving, Royal College of Art, London (2009)
The Ghost of a Flea, Wimbledon College of Art, Centre for Drawing, London (2007)
Hotel Vinegar: An Exhibition of Paintings by Ansel Krut, DomoBaal Art Gallery, London (2006)
'It Could be Suicide...': Ansel Krut on Paper, DomoBaal Art Gallery, London (2004)
Jerwood Drawing Prize 2002, Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham and Glasgow School of Art (2003)
Ansel Krut: the Consolations of Orpheus and Other Stories, Jason & Rhodes Gallery, London (1998)
Cries & Whispers: New Works for the British Council Collection, The British Council, London (1998)
Characters from the Bible, Ben Uri Gallery, London (1998)
Ansel Krut: New Paintings, Jason and Rhodes Gallery, London (1996)
Ansel Krut: New Paintings, Gillian Jason Gallery, London (1994)
Jewish Artists: The Ben Uri Collection (1994)
Richard Oelze and Ansel Krut, Fischer Fine Art, London (1990)
Ansel Krut and Yolanda Sonnabend, Fischer Fine Art, London (1989)
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London (1985)

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Ansel Krut artist

Born: 1959 Cape Town, South Africa

Year of Migration to the UK: 1980

Biography

Related books

Public collections

Related organisations

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Ben Uri library