Jack Crabtree

Background

Crabtree was born in 1938 in Rochdale, Lancashire, England.

Education

He studied at the following art colleges:.

Career

He is known for a series of paintings documenting the South Wales coal industry. Rochdale College of Art

Saint Martin"s School of Art, London (1957-1959)

Royal Academy Schools, London (1959-1961)

After leaving the Royal Academy Crabtree lived and worked for a number of years in Rochdale and Salford and then at Newport in South Wales, before taking up an appointment at the University of Ulster in Belfast. He settled in France in 1987.

To date Crabtree has had over 70 solo exhibitions.

His work can be found in many public collections. "Crabtree is a social realist who works in a natural style that is neither didactic nor over-emphatic.

Sometimes his imagery is exhilarating, full of energetic figures, and sometimes sad and sensitive, showing old or weary men struggling to keep going. His vision is affectionate rather than romantic.

He sees wild hillsides as a beautiful setting for one of the grimmest jobs facing any manitoba

In his paintings, that beauty and that grimness are parts of an inter-locking reality that has stimulated his creative imagination. While in his graphics the spare outlines and meticulous observation of human nature has been likened to George Grosz"son The comparison is misleading, for Crabtree"s sense of humour rarely turns into satire."

1961-1966: Salford School of Art, and teaching in schools in the Salford and Rochdale area.

1966-1974: Lecturer at the College of Art in Newport.

1978-: Senior Lecturer at the Gwent College of Further Education

1983-1986: Professor and Head of Fine Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast. Crabree"s work is in several public collections, including

National Museum Cardiff

National Library of Wales

Ulster Museum

National Coal Mining Museum for England, Wakefield

Newport Museum and Art Gallery

Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Swansea

Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool

National Trust

Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Arts Council of Ireland

The University of South Wales (Glamorgan)

1971: Artist at Work - murals on the theme of Owain Glyndŵr for the Council Chambers at Plas, Machynlleth.

1974/75: for the National Coal Board, a pictorial record of the changing face of the coalfields of South Wales.

Achievements

• 1959/60: Kenyon"s Foundation Rochdale Education Authority travelling bursary to France. 1974/75: Fellowship at the National Coal Board. 1975/76: Gregynog Arts Fellowship, University of Wales. 1977/78: First International Ruhr Arts Fellowship awarded by the West German Government.

Membership

He was elected a member of the 56 Group Wales (1971-1975).