Graham Ovenden

Graham Ovenden (born 1943) is an English painter, fine art photographer, writer and architect. He is married to artist Annie Ovenden. Their daughter Emily is a writer, and a singer with the Mediaeval Baebes.

Life

Born in New Alresford into a Fabian household, Ovenden attended Itchen Grammar School (1954-59) and was taught music privately by Albert Ketelbey. Ovenden was a student at the Royal College of Music, before taking up painting around 1962.

He was tutored by Lord David Cecil and Sir John Betjeman. He attended the Southampton School of Art, and graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1968. One of his most important teachers was James Sellars, an expert on Samuel Palmer.

He moved to Cornwall in 1973 with painter Annie Ovenden and their family. Since then he has been constructing a neo-Gothic building, "Barley Splatt" near Bodmin in Cornwall.

Ovenden was a founder of the Brotherhood of Ruralists in 1975, along with Graham Arnold, Ann Arnold, Sir Peter Blake, David Inshaw, Annie Ovenden and Jann Haworth. The Brotherhood is still extant, although three members have left; in 2005 it had a major London exhibition at the Leicester Galleries. They were given the name "Ruralists" by writer Laurie Lee.

Work

Ovenden's 1950s street photographs of London's children's street culture have been published as "Childhood Streets" (1998).

Among his books on Victorian photography are: "Pre Raphaelite Photography" (1972); "Victorian Children" (1972); "Victorian Erotic Photography" (1973); "A Victorian Album - Julia Margaret Cameron and Her Circle" (1975); "Alphonse Mucha Photographs" (1974); "Clementina Lady Hawarden" (1974); "Hill & Adamson, Photographers" (1973); "Lewis Carroll" (1984). He also curated the 1993/4 exhibition "Recording Angels, The Work of Lewis Wickes Hine".

Ovenden is a photographer and a writer; he has also undertaken stage design and book illustrations. His work is in collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Tate, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Ovenden's photographic work is controversial for its depiction of prepubescent girls. In 1993, some of his photographs were confiscated by the Obscene Publications Squad from Scotland Yard but returned after a campaign by fellow artists Sir Hugh Casson, Lord Hutchinson and David Hockney. [Public debate -Art Market Diary, Sarah Jane Checkland, "The Times", London, February 8, 1994] ["Brotherhood of Ruralists", "A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art", Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press, 1998. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. ] His work "Five Girls" is exhibited in the Tate Gallery.

In 1980 he was found not guilty of fraud, pertaining to his involvement in the production of hoax calotypes, purportedly images of Victorian street children by a photographer "Francis Hetling". Some had been shown at the National Portrait Gallery. [Two cleared of photographs plot, Frances Gibb, "The Times", Nov 12, 1980]

References

* Victor Arwas, Laurie Lee, Robert Melville. "Graham Ovenden". (Academy Editions, 1987).
* "The Brotherhood of Ruralists - A Celebration" (2003).
* Christopher Martin (Ed). "Art & Design No.23 - The Ruralists" (Academy Editions, 1991).
* Hugh Cumming. "Post-Modern Landscape: The Art of Graham Ovenden" in: "Art and Design: The Post-Avant-Garde Painting in the Eighties" (1987).

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1730&page=1 Ovenden's works at the Tate Gallery]
* [http://ruralists.com/ Brotherhood of Ruralists web site] .
* [http://ruralistfineart.co.uk/pages/artists/GrahamOvenden.html Examples of work] .
* [http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=021M-C0459X0117XX-0100V0.xml The British Library: partial transcript of an interview with Ovenden]
*worldcat id|id=lccn-n50-49944