Patrick Procktor was born to English parents in Dublin, Ireland in 1936 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1958–61. He held his first solo show at London's Redfern Gallery in 1963, which proved to be an instant success, both critically and commercially and in 1964 his work featured in the landmark 'New Generation' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, the success of which introduced him to a wide circle of patrons and friends, including David Hockney, R. B. Kitaj, Francis Bacon and Cecil Beaton. Procktor established himself as an extraordinary watercolourist, known for portraits, landscapes, flowers and still-lifes.
Painter and printmaker Patrick Procktor was born to English parents in Dublin, Ireland on 12 March 1936. His father died in 1940 when Procktor was only four years old and he was subsequently brought up by his mother in England, in Brighton and London. Lack of financial means forced him to leave Highgate School early (where his art master was Welsh landscape painter Kyffin Williams), although his ability at classics had made him a promising candidate for Oxford University. During National Service with the Royal Navy he learnt Russian and after demobilization he worked as an interpreter, visiting the Soviet Union three times during the Cold War. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1958–61, receiving a thorough academic training, with the first year spent making carefully measured drawings and paintings. Procktor valued the emphasis on drawing at the Slade, as well as the art history lectures and seminars by Francis Haskell and émigré, Ernst Gombrich; he was also particularly influenced by his tutor, Keith Vaughan, as both artist and friend (National Life Stories interview). Procktor held his first solo exhibition at London's Redfern Gallery in 1963, which proved to be an instant success, both critically and commercially. Two further one-man exhibitions at the Redfern (1965 and 1967) consolidated his reputation, and Procktor was to show there throughout his career. Bryan Robertson, then director of the Whitechapel Gallery, described Procktor as ‘part of an exceptionally gifted and lively generation […], his own painting has a breadth of life, an expansiveness, and a willingness to risk everything at all points of the compass which combine to make his recent work one of the most tonic events in a decade’ (Robertson 1963, p. 61). In 1964 Robertson selected him for the first of the New Generation exhibitions at the Whitechapel, featuring 12 young artists including Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney and Bridget Riley. The success of the show placed Proktor with a Pop art milieu, introduced him to many potential patrons and a wide creative circle, including Hockney, R. B. Kitaj, Francis Bacon and Cecil Beaton. In his studio on Manchester Street Procktor first met Peter Langan, owner of the well-known Langan's Brasserie in Mayfair, who had rooms in the same building. Langan commissioned artists' work for his restaurants and paid them in kind, allowing them to eat and entertain there free of charge. Procktor, who began a turbulent relationship with Langan, painted many works for him, designed the menus for the restaurants and painted the famous murals of Venice on the walls of the first floor of the Brasserie in 1976.
The easily portable medium of watercolour on paper suited Procktor’s penchant for travel and he made prolonged visits to China, Egypt, India, Japan, Morocco, and his favourite, Venice; he later declared that ‘the light in Egypt is violet, in China daffodil, in Venice opalescent’ (McEwen 2003, p. 18). His first watercolour exhibition was held at the Redfern in 1968. Procktor was regarded as an extraordinary watercolourist, ‘every effect painted with one wispy brush’ (McEwen 2009), producing portraits, landscapes, flowers and still lifes. His earliest watercolours date from 1966, at a time when the medium was quite unfashionable. Of his watercolour portraits, Procktor noted that ‘I have never considered myself a portrait painter, but a painter of pictures of people’(Stephen Ongpin). Procktor's sitters included Mick Jagger, Derek Jarman, and the model and rock star, Gervaise. His 1967 iconic pen drawing of playwright and friend, Joe Orton, with nothing but his socks on, caused a scandal and, as Ian Massey has suggested, Procktor was at times critically marginalised (Massey p. 11). In 1976 he published a series of aquatints and etchings illustrating The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which revealed his outstanding skills as a printmaker. In 1983 he was commissioned to design Turandot for the Royal Opera House (a project never realised) and in 1985 he was invited by the British Council to produce a series of watercolours recording the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Portugal. In 1996 he was elected a Royal Academician (RA) at London's Royal Academy of Arts.
Patrick Procktor died on 29 August 2003 at Whipps Cross University Hospital, Leytonstone, England. His work is represented in many UK public collections including the Tate, Royal Academy of Arts and Arts Council Collection. The largest posthumous exhibition was held at Huddersfield Art Gallery in 2012. In a review of the show, Michael Bracewell’s highlighted Procktor’s importance as a painter: ‘[…] while Procktor is perhaps better known for the elegance and glamour […] of his watercolours [...] it is his paintings which seem to make the strongest claim for his achievements as an artist […]. As a painter in oils and acrylics, […] he combined rare lucidity with a poet’s depth of feeling’ (Bracewell 2012, p. 168).
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Patrick Procktor]
Publications related to [Patrick Procktor] in the Ben Uri Library