Ray Atkins is a British figurative artist, member of the St Ives School & the London Group and educator. He was born in 1937 in Exeter, Devon, and studied art at Bromley College of Art and at the Slade School of Fine Art.
After graduating from the Slade in 1964, Atkins initially worked in London before moving to Reading in 1970 to take up a teaching post. In 1974 he moved to Cornwall. Since 2009 he has been living in the Haute Garonne in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. Ray Atkins is represented by Art Space Gallery | Michael Richardson Contemporary Art London since 1989.
Atkins' works can be found in many public and private collections, including the British Council, the Arts Council of England, the British Museum, the Newlyn Art Gallery and Reading University's collection.
1970: Piers Morris Gallery, London
1974: Whitechapel Art Gallery
1977: Newlyn Art Gallery:
1983: Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro
1985: Galerie Leisten und Thiesen, Munster, Germany
1988: Eurogallery, London
1989: New Paintings Art Space Gallery, London
1991: New Paintings Art Space Gallery, London
1993: New Paintings Art Space Gallery, London
1995: New Paintings Art Space Gallery, London
1996: Ray Atkins retrospective, Art Space Gallery, London
1996: Ray Atkins retrospective, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
1997: Kilkenny Arts Week, Kilkenny Castle Ireland, (invited artist)
1998: New Paintings, Art Space Gallery, London
1999: Ray Atkins and the Figure, Art Space Gallery, London
2001: Broken Ground, Wheal Jane mine, Truro (in collaboration with poet Peter Redgrove and composer Paul Hancock
2001: Rhythm of the Seasons, Art Space Gallery, London
2003: Paintings 2003, Art Space Gallery, London
2005: Paintings 2005, Art Space Gallery, London
2007: Paintings and Drawings 2007, Art Space Gallery, London
2009: Aspet s'Expose (invité d'honneur), Aspet, Haute- PaintingsGaronne, France
2011: Ray Atkins: The Long View: from Cornwall to the Pyrenees, Art Space Gallery, London and touring:
2012: Ray Atkins: The Long View: from Cornwall to the Pyrenees, Dean Clough Art Gallery, Halifax, West Yorkshire
2014: Jean Marmignon Theatre Gallery, St Gaudens, France
2015: At the Forest's Edge Art Space Gallery, London
2016: The Reading Years Reading Museum, Reading, UK
1961 onwards: London Group exhibitions.
1964: Young Contemporaries
1968: From Life, Camden Arts Centre
1974: British Painting '74, Hayward Gallery, London
1978: Newlyn Society at Pont Aven, Brittany, France
1982: Summer Show I, Serpentine Gallery, London
1983: Cleveland International Drawing Biennale
1984: Dortmund Art Fair, Germany
1985: Royal Society of British Artists(invited artist), Mall Galleries, London
1986: Twentieth Century British Artists and the Sea, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
1989: Salute to Turner, Agnew's, London
1995: Royal Academy summer exhibition
2001: The London Group at the Walk
2005: Tree-Mendous, Falmouth Art Gallery
2011: Flashback, Art Space Gallery, London