Kenneth Rowntree: A Centenary Exhibition

Through his friendship with Ravilious, Rowntree moved to the idyllic village of Great Bardfield in 1941. Rowntree depicted his surroundings using playful recurring motifs, and distinct locations including the Essex countryside, the Welsh Hills and the Sussex coastline can be identified in his work. Later the Australian outback and the great landscapes of America which he visited during his travels overseas became common subjects in his work.

The exhibition includes over 20 works which demonstrate the extent of his oeuvre, from a focus on the figurative to the abstract and back again. His wide-ranging creative influences – Eric Ravilious, David Hockney, the Euston Road School, and the Dadaism of Kurt Schwitters – are evident in the selection of works, and yet the enduring themes of humour and inventiveness are consistent throughout.

This centenary exhibition places Rowntree’s work in the wider context of the Gallery’s collection of Modern British art, including abstract and Pop artists of the 1950s and 60s such as Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore with whom he taught at the Royal College of Art and Newcastle University. It seeks to confirm Kenneth Rowntree’s significant place in the history of 20^th century British art.

The exhibition was accompanied by the publication of an illustrated book published by Moore-Gwyn Fine Art and Liss Llewellyn Fine Art.

He was a figure of his time, whose technical command enabled him to speak with authority in a variety of visual languages…surveying the full range of his work, it is this quality of whimsical playfulness that gives it its coherence and defines it as the project of a unique consciousness. Once seen, Rowntree’s work is unmistakable.

Peyton Skipwith, Country Life

Rowntree has his fans but deserves wider recognition for his upbeat but strangely haunting paintings of landscapes, buildings, boats and interiors.

James Russell on the Web