Bratby, John Randall

▪ British painter

born July 19, 1928, Wimbledon, Surrey [now in Greater London], Eng.

died July 20, 1992, Hastings, East Sussex

      British painter who rose to prominence in the 1950s as a member of the Kitchen Sink School, a group of British social-realist artists who paralleled the literary Angry Young Men of the decade.

      Although he was accepted at the Slade School of Fine Art, Bratby attended the Royal College of Art (1951–54). His first solo exhibition, mounted at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London (1954), gained him instant popularity. For many years after his artwork appeared in the motion picture The Horse's Mouth (1958), he was identified in the popular imagination with the film's protagonist, a bohemian artist. Bratby was particularly known for the feverish speed at which he worked and for the thick texture of his vividly coloured, Expressionistic paintings, into which he often incorporated everyday objects. His productivity did not decline with his popularity in the 1960s, as he continued to create thousands of sketches and paintings, including hundreds of portraits. He wrote several autobiographical novels, notably Breakdown (1960), and served as editor in chief of Art Quarterly from 1987.

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