William Roper-Curzon

William Roper-Curzon is, first and foremost, a skilled technical artist; he works with pen, ink, pencil, and charcoal to render images with meticulous detail and deliberate expressive flourish. Though trained in western European schools that privileged traditional draughtsmanship, Roper-Curzon draws inspiration from a diverse range of sources and genres, including the modernist sculptor Jacob Epstein. In Roper-Curzon’s depictions of landscapes and figures, he takes cues from masters such as Frank Auerbach, but his paintings veer more toward the expressionistic end of the spectrum. Inspired by the dreamlike, emotive work of artists like Matisse, Roper-Curzon employs a large color palette and loose brush strokes, as exemplified in his recent “Garden Dream” (2014) series. Roper-Curzon, skilled in nearly every genre in which marks are placed on paper, stands as an example, even in the age of digital renderings, of the power of technical ability in the hands of an engaged contemporary artist.