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A PROFESSIONAL LIFE REMEMBERED ...

During his life, Ian was an art lecturer at Camberwell, Hornsey College of Art, Visiting Professor at University Wisconsin, Racine and Middlesex Polytechnic. He was at Hornsey during the infamous sit in, but to the best of our knowledge, he was not involved.


Perhaps the best summary of Ian’s professional life is his obituary written by Professor Peter Green, Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design in 1986:
‘...He was an outstanding painter and talented printmaker with work in major collection both in the UK and abroad, and had been a member of the CNAA Fine Art Board and an external examiner at many major degree colleges.

Ian became course head for Fine Art in 1983 at a very difficult time for the course. Without his tireless efforts and skilful guidance, the polytechnic could well have lost this major course. He did so much to restore confidence and restructure the course and led the staff team with tact, consideration, and much personal kindness. His style was always self-effacing and modest and few perhaps realised the extent of his contribution to Fine Art education, not only within the polytechnic but also nationally.

The faculty clearly owes so much to his skill and personal efforts. He not only, in many senses helped rescue the Fine Art course be he did a great deal to bring the area into a closer working association with the rest of the faculty and the polytechnic as a whole....'



Ian’s colleague Richard Robbins wrote:
‘...As a senior colleague, where he stood back he did so to give freedom to others; where he intervened, he did so to promote fairness. Of course he was delighted if students of the course did excellent work in the specialised areas of the subject, but he felt the most important provision to be that of opportunity for individuals to discover their most genuine gravitation and focus of interest whatever the direction.

As a teacher he never encouraged any form of satellite self glorification but helped students find their own way through our subject. He freely gave others what he knew.

His work as an artist was known widely in this country and other parts of the world. However, his later work has so far been seen by few. There are three dominant moods represented in it. That of sheer horror and black despair that occurs in the dark imagery of his interpretations of the holocaust. Then there is the lyrical abstracted beauty contained in works around what he called ’the tranquil garden’, and finally those abstracts with their subtle resolution so like music in the directness and engagement of the intellect....’

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