Norman Ackroyd

Norman Ackroyd, CBE, R.A. (born 1938 in Leeds, Yorkshire) is an English artist known primarily for his aquatints. He is based in London.

Ackroyd attended Leeds College of Art from 1957–61 and the Royal College of Art, London from 1961–64, where he studied under Julian Trevelyan. Subsequently he lived for several years in the United States. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Art in 1988 and appointed Professor of Etching, University of the Arts, in 1994. He was elected Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art in 2000, and in 2007 was made CBE for services to Engraving and Printing.

Ackroyd's works from the 1960s show his interest in both Pop Art, particularly artist Jasper Johns, and Minimalism. His complex compositions from that period often integrate pre-existing imagery such as newspaper clippings.

Gradually Ackroyd abandons the language of Pop Art; for a time his compositions simplify and grow more abstract, sometimes geometric. In time they depict or suggest naturalistic elements, e.g., hills, clouds, rainbows. Even when depicting rainbows, Ackroyd uses colour only very sparingly. He moves away from stencils and photographic transfers to pure aquatint, beginning the plate sometimes out in the landscape. His mature work can be reminiscent of J.M.W. Turner's, albeit without the benefit of colour.

In the 1980s Ackroyd emerges as a full-blown landscape artist with a deep affinity for the various topographies specific to the British Isles. Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design mounted a retrospective exhibition of these works in 2006 and keeps an archive of the artist's work. Weather and water are made the stuff of highly experimental and variable compositions, in many instances technical tours de force. Depending on the locale, atmospheric conditions and intended mood, his works range from minimalist, nearly abstract impressions, to richly detailed images of specific places and seasons. Although his work almost never includes the human figure, the landscape subjects he prefers are often ones of age-old human habitation. In scale his prints range from tiny etchings intended to be bound into books to large scale, even huge, etchings. His preferred medium for working directly on paper is watercolour, including a recent project pairing his watercolors with poems by Kevin Crossley-Holland, published under the title Moored Man. He has also designed a number of large-scale, etched reliefs in steel or bronze commissioned for architectural projects in London, Moscow, Birmingham, and Glasgow. Recently completed projects include a mural at the Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge University, showing scenes from the Galapagos, and a door at Great Portland Estates in London, W1. See also The Stratton Street Series, Categorical Books, London, 2003 (introduction by Ian Ritchie).

With Douglas Dunn, he has recently published A Line in the Water; the book was designed by Isambard Thomas. Ackroyd's working methods are described in the most recent issue of Archipelago (No. III, Spring 2009).

Ackroyd's work can be found in several British and American galleries, and in the collections of major museums including the Tate, the British Museum, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington. He has been featured in several television programmes, including BBC documentaries in 1980 and 2006.

External links

• Artist's personal website with images of recent works. Also for Tender is the North, Paintings and Etchings by Norman Ackroyd, essay by Mary Sara, 1997.
• Royal Academy page
• Central Saint Martin's Archive
• For Moored Man
• For A Line in the Water
• For A Line in the Water in U.K. Or directly from the Royal Academy
• For Archipelago
• For Sainsbury Laboratory building project
• Also for the Sainsbury
• For Norman Ackroyd, Irish Etchings 1987-2008
• For Norman Ackroyd, Scottish Etchings 1974-2006
• For Norman Ackroyd, The Secret Painter, 2005, essay by Christopher Frayling.
• Portraits at NPG
• On Frank Brangwyn's press

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Name	Ackroyd, Norman
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Date of birth	1938
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