Lawrence Gowing

Lawrence Gowing
Name	Lawrence Gowing
Caption	Lawrence Gowing, c. 1960s
Birth date	1906-06-11
Birth place	Kensington
Death date	1991-08-22
Death place	Cambridge, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Painter; Art critic; Curator; Teacher
Known for	Portraiture; Art writing; Curatorial projects

Lawrence Gowing (11 June 1906 – 22 August 1991) was a British painter, art historian, critic, curator, and teacher noted for his portraiture and influential writings on modern and historical art. He produced a substantial body of paintings and drawings while shaping institutional practice at museums and universities, engaging with figures and movements across the twentieth century. His work connected the traditions of John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, and Diego Velázquez with the concerns of Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, and mid‑century British art.

Early life and education

Born in Kensington, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art where he was a contemporary of W. H. Auden and Ralph Fox, and later at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Early influences included visits to collections such as the National Gallery, London and the British Museum, where he encountered works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Titian, and Édouard Manet. During the 1930s he spent time in Paris engaging with the milieu around André Derain and the legacy of Henri Matisse, and he examined modern practice alongside the holdings of the Musée du Louvre and the Musée Picasso, Paris.

Career as painter and portraitist

Gowing became known chiefly as a portraitist, painting sitters who were prominent in British intellectual and cultural life, including figures associated with the Bloomsbury Group, the BBC, and the Royal Academy of Arts. He completed portraits of personalities linked to institutions such as the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the University of Oxford. His approach combined study of Johannes Vermeer and Diego Velázquez with attention to the formal experiments of Édouard Manet and Francis Bacon. Critics compared his handling of light and surface to the concerns evident in works by John Singer Sargent and Gustave Courbet. Gowing’s practice also encompassed landscapes and still lifes that referenced villas and collections in Italy and the traditions associated with Piero della Francesca and Caravaggio.

Art criticism and writing

As an essayist and critic, Gowing wrote for prominent outlets and produced monographs and catalogues raisonnés on figures ranging from Francis Bacon to Willem de Kooning and earlier masters such as J. M. W. Turner. His books addressed painting practice, historiography, and the reception of art in the twentieth century; he engaged with debates involving the Royal Society of Arts, the Arts Council of Great Britain, and curatorial policy at the National Gallery, London. He contributed substantial texts on the works of Giorgio Vasari and the interpretation of Renaissance painting, while also analysing modern movements associated with Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Cubism. Gowing’s editorial and critical voice intersected with contemporaries such as Kenneth Clark, John Berger, Roger Fry, T. S. Eliot, and Ernst Gombrich.

Teaching and curatorial work

Gowing held teaching posts and curatorial appointments that linked academic study to museum practice. He lectured at the Slade School of Fine Art and was associated with the University of Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute of Art, participating in dialogues with the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and the Royal College of Art. In curatorial roles he organised exhibitions that brought together old masters and contemporary output, collaborating with institutions such as the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, London, and international venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. His curatorial philosophy reflected conversations with directors such as John Rothenstein and David Rockefeller, and he was involved in advisory capacities for acquisitions linked to patrons including Paul Mellon and Samuel Courtauld.

Major exhibitions and collections

Gowing’s paintings were shown in solo and group exhibitions at major venues—the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibitions, and international galleries in New York City and Paris. Museums that acquired his work include the Tate Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and university collections at Cambridge and Oxford. Retrospectives explored his relationship to the lineage of portraiture from Hans Holbein the Younger and Antoine Watteau through to twentieth‑century practitioners such as Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. Exhibition catalogues often placed his oeuvre in dialogue with themes prominent in surveys of British art and comparative studies involving the European Avant‑Garde.

Personal life and legacy

Gowing’s personal circle included artists, critics, academics, and patrons connected to Bloomsbury Group figures and postwar cultural institutions. He married and maintained residences allowing travel between England and continental Europe, sustaining research that fed both paintings and writings. His legacy endures in collections, publications, and in the influence he exerted on students and curators at the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Slade School of Fine Art, and the Tate Gallery. His contributions informed histories and critical studies alongside writers such as Anthony Blunt, Michael Lynch, and Linda Nochlin, and his work continues to be cited in scholarship on portraiture, curatorship, and twentieth‑century British art.

Category:British painters Category:British art critics Category:1906 births Category:1991 deaths