Lot 946: Rodney Gladwell 1928-1979- The Jazz Band; oil on

Rodney Gladwell 1928-1979- The Jazz Band; oil on board, signed, 120x90cm. Notes on the artist: Work held in many public and private collections including the Wertheim Collection, University of Sussex, University of Johannesburg. Gladwell was born in Didcot, Berkshire and educated in Shoreham. He completed his artistic training at the Atelier Colarossi in Paris from 1949 to 1950. Some of Rodney's best work has a strong expressionist style with bold designs and colours. He is a gifted draftsman and technically very proficient with oil paints. Often he will use white and one other colour in his paintings. Such a technique demands a transcendental and classical facility. If the 'other' colour is examined, in each case it reveals a building up of glaze over glaze, the chief means by which the Old Masters succeeded in their sparkling effects. He used the same technique when building block on block of colour in his colourful paintings. Max Wykes-Joyce, member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art, considered in 1971 there was no other Englishman who could equal the Ecole de Paris at its magnificent best. In his last few years he developed collages with surfaces that were contoured and sensuous enough to want to touch. Alas he was not able to continue his search any more when he contracted cancer. Unfortunately he died at the relatively young age of forty-five. As with so many artists, he has been largely forgotten. Roland, Browse and Delbanco organized the exhibition, 'British Painters of Today' in Hamburg in 1968. Gladwell was selected to be in the company of Henry Moore, Terry Frost, Francis Bacon, Victor Pasmore, David Hockney, Graham Sutherland and many others of similar ability and reputation. 1951-55 Annual Exhibition with Dr. E.R.Morris, Archer Gallery, London 1953 Mural commissioned by Pierre Bertrand on Anglo French Theme, 'Time Figaro', originally in Printing House Square. 1955 Les Surindependants, Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris 1959 Still Life and figure Drawings commissioned by the Georgian Club, London 1959 Exhibition combining Modern Fabrics and Paintings for the Cotton Board of Great Britain in Manchester, which was exhibited in Australia and New Zealand. 1962 Mural commissioned by Sussex University, painting 10ft by 9ft 1962/3 One Man Exhibition, Sussex University 1964 Situations Exhibition, Molton Gallery, London 1964One Man Exhibition, Molton Gallery, London 1964Cornucopia Exhibition, Molton Gallery, London 1965 One Man Exhibition, Molton Gallery, London 1966 One Man Exhibition, Philomathean Art gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 1967One Man Exhibition, Lefevre Gallery, London 1967 One Man Exhibition, Galerie Palette, Zurich 1968 Britische Kunst Heute (British Art Today), Kunstverein, Hamburg 1969 One Man Exhibition from the permanent Wertheim Collection, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne 1969One Man Exhibition, Galerie Palette, Zurich 1970 Galerie Pilot, Bi-annual Modern Art Dealers Exhibition, Beaux Art, Lausanne and Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris 1970 One Man Exhibition, Gallery Lasson, London 1970 Work purchased by the Arts Council 1971One Man Exhibition, Galerie Palette, Zurich 1971One Man Exhibition, Archer Gallery, London 1973One Man Exhibition, Archer Gallery, London 1974 One Man Exhibition, Nordene Galleries, Johannesburg 1974 'A Decade, 1964-1974', J.P.Lehmans Gallery, London