The Open Gate

An exhibition of paintings by Maurice Cockrill RA

From 14 September to 24 November

Graham Storey Room, Trinity Hall

Open Saturdays 10am-12.30pm and Sundays 2-5pm

Other times by arrangement with the College - call 01223 332555.

Free admission - works for sale.

On Friday 18 October, 6.30 - 8.30pm there will be a reception / private view in the exhibition space and a short talk about the work of Maurice Cockrill.  All alumni and friends of the College will be most welcome.  

Please call 01223 332555 or email events@trinhall.cam.ac.uk for more information.

 

As Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools from 2004 to 2011, Maurice Cockrill worked at the heart of the Visual Arts world, and remains one of the most original artists working in Britain today. 

 Cockrill’s first major group exhibition was Art in the City at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1967.  Since then, he has held solo exhibitions internationally, such as at the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf (1985), Annandale Galleries, Sydney, Australia, and Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London and New York. A retrospective of his work (1974-1994) was held at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1995) as well as at the Royal West of England Academy (1998).

 Maurice Cockrill is famous for his breadth of techniques and themes, saying: ‘the artists I’ve admired most, like Picasso, are the protean ones. I’d rather be changing shape than just be doing the same thing time after time.’  Yet these paintings demonstrate a supreme confidence of colour and form: a synthesis and culmination of this extraordinary painter’s career.

 The serpentine and lyrical curves in the works of this exhibition reveal Cockrill’s preoccupation with organic forms, especially water and the phases of a river. The curves in paintings can be seen as river-maps flowing round the canvases – reminiscent of series of pictures such as the ‘Conwy River Cycle’ (1998) – painted in Conwy estuary in North Wales, close to where the artist grew up – and ‘Spectral Rivers’ (2001).  Rivers are important to Cockrill as they evoke the cycle of life – birth, maturity, decay and regeneration – that echo these central human preoccupations.  The artist explains that a proximity to nature – whether in North Wales, or to his back garden in South London – helps him to address the realm of emotions rather than reason.

Cockrill’s paintings are in many private and public collections including the British Museum, Arts Council of Great Britain, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Royal Academy of Arts.

 Maurice Cockrill's website

 This exhibition is held in association with Adam Gallery (London and Bath)