Roy Oxlade

Alison Jacques presents a solo exhibition of British painter Roy Oxlade (1929–2014), spanning 30 years of his practice and featuring many works which have not previously been shown.

To coincide with the exhibition, the first monograph on Oxlade will be published, with essays by Jennifer Higgie, Barry Schwabsky, an interview with Rose Wylie by Harry Thorne, and artist contributions by Sophie Barber, Alvaro Barrington, Tal R, Julian Schnabel and Clare Woods. Roy Oxlade is often viewed as an ‘artist’s artist’: he was hugely influential as a teacher and writer, as well as a painter. Considered part of the post-Bomberg lineage in British figurative painting, his work persistently challenged the conventions of modern painting and its histories. Oxlade developed an intellectually rigorous and singular visual language rooted in structure, vitality and intuitive mark-making. His work resists categorisation, combining formal experimentation with a sustained enquiry into the conditions of making and seeing. In 2014, The Guardian described Oxlade as ‘one of the most impressive British painters of the past 50 years’.

Oxlade emerged in the 1950s as part of the ‘School of London’, a prominent group of London-based painters alongside Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. Taught by David Bomberg, Oxlade remained true to Bomberg’s values of authenticity in brush marks, developing a practice grounded in direct engagement with the physical world. Domesticity and ritual are central to his practice. His work is inextricably entwined with daily life, which he shared with his wife of 57 years, the artist Rose Wylie.

Free

Tuesday – Saturday: 11am – 6pm