Multi-faceted artist, born in Bicester, Oxfordshire, who attended Ealing School of Art, studying under a number of avant-garde teachers and participating in The Ground Course, “a revolutionary method of art teaching” which “released a great wealth of creative talent”. In 1967 English became involved in the hippie movement in England and America, producing large volumes of psychedelic posters and painting fashionable shopfronts. Was involved in forming the Rock group Hapshash & the Coloured Coat in 1968, named after the design partnership that he formed with Nigel Waymouth. An album was released on the Liberty label. With the decline in hippiedom English in 1969 – the year of his first solo show, at Motif Gallery – shifted towards a personal style of Super-Realism, which manifested itself in limited-edition prints entitled Food Synaesthetics and Rubbish, as the result of which his work gained global exposure.
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In 1973 began to paint canvases, abandoning the more Pop-oriented work of the prints, man-made objects taking the role of pollutants, as in his painting No Deposit No Return. From 1975 there was a shift in content, monumental works of great detail featuring transport machinery. From 1986 English became dissatisfied with Hyper-Realism, seeking a new personal style. English’s books include 3-D Eye, 1979, and The Anatomy of an Illusion, 1989. He showed at galleries in London, New York, Tokyo, Paris and the south of France and was featured in the Barbican’s The Sixties Art Scene in London, 1993. Museum of Modern Art in New York, Arts Council and British Council and Victoria & Albert Museum hold examples. Much of English’s later work was sold direct to the buyer instead of through galleries plus some advertising commissions “which I enjoy”. English wrote: “I have attempted to convey the feel and smell of objects, to cross the boundaries of the senses, to evoke by painting alone the sense of smell, sound and touch. The by-product of this technique has been a certain sexuality…eroticism.” Lived in London.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
