Norman Ackroyd CBE RA (1938-2024)

I was very sad to hear that the eminent master printmaker Norman Ackroyd passed away last week - in the  afternoon of a fine warm day (Monday 16th September) at his home in Bermondsey. He was 86

Norman Ackroyd (1938-2024)

Such a contrast to his lithographs and prints of the windswept, rainy isles and vaporous clouds in the North of Scotland and other rugged Atlantic seascapes and landscapes in the UK and Ireland. He was a complete master of portraying the coasts on the Atlantic seaboard.

His capacity for creating vaporous clouds filled with sea birds - with amorphous giant shapes representing the coastline which has stood up the beating of winds and rain from west was simply amazing - and his prints had very many fans.

Norman Ackroyd's map of all the locations (with a pin) where he been
to create etchings of that landscape in his studio in Bermondsey

There's a couple of excellent Videos of him talking about his artwork and his processes on YouTube based on the BBC series "What do Artists do all day?" which reviewed him and his work. These are they....

I remember him very well from when he led the tour on the Press Preview for the RA Summer Exhibition in 2013 - which was the best I'd ever been to. It's always stayed in my memory. He struck me then as a complete "one-off" and a really interesting man who could speak about art in plain English. Probably something to do with the northerner in me responding positively to the fact he was born in Leeds in Yorkshire!

Norman Ackroyd CBE RA
talking about hanging Gallery III at Burlington House (RA Summer Exhibition 2013)
which included works hung in honour of the late Mary Fedden RA
who had recently passed away.

This is a video of Norman Ackroyd talking about the process of selecting and then hanging a Summer Exhibition.

Life and career of Norman Ackroyd

His website summarises his life, art education and the career of Norman Ackroyd. He graduated from the Royal College of Art 60 years ago this summer.

• 1938: Born Leeds
• 1956-61: Leeds College of Art
• 1961-64: Royal College of Art, London
• 1988: Elected Royal Academician
• 1994: Appointed Professor of Etching, University of the Arts
• 1999 - 2000: Professor of Printmaking
• 2000: Elected Senior Fellow, Royal College of Art
• 2007: Awarded a C.B.E. for Services to Engraving and printing
• 2013: Elected Senior RA: 1 October 2013

He has produced work for many significant commissions and has work in prestigious collections all over the world. It also sells pretty fast at the RA Summer Exhibition

He called his medium “painting with acid”, and he was on friendly terms with a vast array of the chemicals, from the violent hydrochloric to the lively nitric, which “bites in all directions”. Daily Telegraph obituary

His work in Art Collections

His work is in the collections of very many prominent art galleries and organisations.

Selected Public Collections

Albertina Museum, Vienna

• Art Institute of Chicago
• Arts Council of Great Britain
• British Council
• British Museum, London 
• Cleveland Museum of Art
• Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
• Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
• National Gallery of Canada
• National Gallery of Norway
• National Gallery of Scotland
• National Gallery of South Africa
• Queensland Art Gallery
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle
• Stedelijk, Amsterdam
• Tate Gallery, London Norman Ackroyd born 1938 - Tate". Tate Britain. 
• Utah Museum of Fine Art

and numerous museums and art galleries in the United Kingdom

Ackroyd also received several public mural commissions, produced in etched stainless steel or bronze. Recent commissions included Lloyds Bank, London; British Airways, Birmingham Airport; Freshfields, London; Tetrapack, Stockley Park, Heathrow; a bronze mural for the Main Hall of the British Embassy, Moscow; and Lazards Bank, Stratton Street, London W1. RA Obituary

 

Obituaries

Other posts about his life include: