John Bratby

John Bratby RA (1928 – 1992)

John Bratby was born in Wimbledon 1928, studied at the Kingston College of Art (1948-50) and then moved to the Royal College of Art in London (1951-54). He met his wife, sculptor and potter and then painter Jean Cooke in 1953 and the following year was given his first solo exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London at the age of 26. He won the John Moores Junior prize in 1959 and the Gugenheim Awards for 1956,57 and 58. He first showed at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1954, became an associate in 1959 and became a full member in 1971.

His taste for domestic life in England is reflected in his painting and he was dubbed a ‘Kitchen Sink’ painter for his choice of every day household objects, executed in thick, colourful impasto oil paint ‘thick as Axminster carpets”. It was this concern with social realism brought Bratby into contact with Jack Smith, Edward Middleditch (b 1923) and Derrick Greaves (b 1927) and these artists became the main exponents of the ‘Kitchen Sink School’.

From the start, Bratby excited much attention and he became an international name almost overnight. In 1956 he was selected, along with his fellow ‘Kitchen Sink’ painters, to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. That year, one of Bratby’s finest early works, Still Life with Chip Frier, was purchased by the Tate Gallery, London.

There was a major retrospective of Bratby’s work at the National Portrait Gallery 1991 and a reassessment of the Kitchen Sink Painters at the Mayor Gallery 1991. An exhibition of his new work, ‘Kitchen Sink Artists Revived’, at the Albemarle Gallery, London brought Bratby back in the critical limelight. The Jerwood Gallery, also held another retrospective in 2016

The Tate attribute his work as a precursor of Pop Art. He was the first to get excited by packaging and brand names, and the streaks and swathes and tubings of bright pigment make an exuberant appeal to the senses.

Submitted by British Art Portfolio