![]() ![]() We have been constantly able to observe life with the Bratbys, almost the only subject he cares to paint. Looking back on Bratby’s work in 1961, art writer Alan Clutton-Brock observed: This sort of subject matter caused him to be linked with fellow artists Edward Middleditch, Derrick Greaves and Jack Smith, whom the art critic David Sylvester dubbed Kitchen Sink painters. The enormous scale of Bratby’s paintings was counterbalanced by their close narrative focus – foodstuffs piled on the kitchen bench or, more prosaically, his wooden-seated toilet. It was one of those strange things that happened. Colour of khaki, restricted foods, ration cards, all contributed to the zeitgeist … The scale was important. ![]() People got used to austerity - the opposite of extravagance. It was to do with the aftermath of the war, and the climate of the aftermath of the war. The dramatic scale and brilliant coloration of Bratby’s work during his Royal College years put him at odds with both teachers and fellow pupils: ![]() A., Middlesex University Press, London, 2008, pp. 1 John Bratby, quoted in Maurice Yacowar, The Great Bratby. Even as a student, Bratby had already developed his own method of applying thick skeins of paint in high-keyed colours with an expressionistic enthusiasm that revealed his indebtedness to Van Gogh, providing a colour shock that he recalled was ‘an absolute anathema at the Royal College at the time’. As a student at London’s Royal College of Art for three years from 1951 to 1954, John Bratby had access to remarkable teachers such as Carel Weight, Rodrigo Moynihan, Ruskin Spear and John Minton, but he rebelled against the school’s reverence for the muted palette of British painter Walter Sickert. ![]()
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