John Craxton 1922 - 2009
An English painter, John Craxton was born in London in 1922 and studied at the Central School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College. In 1942 he became friends with Graham Sutherland and Lucian Freud, sharing a studio in London with Lucian Freud and, as can be seen from his works of this period, very strongly influenced by Graham Sutherland and Samuel Palmer.
Craxton was a huge fan of William Blake’ s. One of the first works he ever purchased was by Blake. He felt that Blake represented the English imagination, held up in contrast to the ‘ pomposity’ of eighteenth century English painting.
After World War II he travelled around the Mediterranean, visiting Greece for the first time in the summer of 1946 before finally settling in Crete in 1960. His early work of the 1940s was often labeled as neo-romantic, filled as it is with a combination of the light and life of Greece and the (imaginative approach) of Blake. The early influence of William Blake gave way to that of Cubism and an admiration for Picasso, placing Craxton in a much more European context. Craxton rejects the label of neo-romantic preferring the title of Arcadian painter. His themes are of course both romantic and pastoral. However the combination of figures with abstraction and his emphasis on the human in his landscapes; fishermen, animals and houses fill his paintings reveal what has been called a more humanist approach to his portrayals of Cretian life. And it is the essence of life which infuses his work, combined with an energy of light and colour. ... read more
Latest catalogueJohn Craxton Paintings and Drawings
John Craxton: A View of the Lily Pond at Claysmore School, 1937
John Craxton: Haunted Figure, 1941
John Craxton: Bowness-on-Windemere, 1942
John Craxton: Exotic Plant I, 1942
John Craxton: Exotic Plant II, 1942
John Craxton: Exotic Plant III, 1942
John Craxton: Figure in Landscape, 1942
John Craxton: Kraken, 1942
John Craxton: Metamorphic Plant I, 1942
John Craxton: Still Life with Bread Board, 1942
John Craxton: Street with Trees, 1942
John Craxton: Tree by Moonlight, 1942
John Craxton: Tree Forms in a Landscape, 1942
John Craxton: Dorset Landscape, 1942-43
John Craxton: Dancer in a Landscape, 1943
John Craxton: Study for Cart Track, 1943
John Craxton: Study for ‘Entrance to a Lane’, 1944
John Craxton: Study for Reaper with a Mushroom, 1944
John Craxton: Dreamer on the Seashore, 1944-45
John Craxton: House in Rocky Landscape, 1945
John Craxton: Man with a Sickle, 1945
John Craxton: Landscape (Spetses, Greece), 1946
John Craxton: Study for Hotel by the Sea, 1946
John Craxton: Tresco Foliage, 1947
John Craxton: Bouzouki Player I, 1955
John Craxton: The Guitarist, 1960
John Craxton: Cretan Gorge, 1970
John Craxton: Rock, Tree and Cat, 1986
John Craxton: Sun, Cat and Bird, 1986-88
John Craxton: Portrait of Young Man Looking Down, c.1941
John Craxton: Dreamer in a Pastoral Landscape, c.1942
John Craxton: Head, c.1942
John Craxton: Shepherd and Sheep, c.1942
John Craxton: Shepherd in a Landscape, c.1942
John Craxton: Shepherd, c.1943
John Craxton: Labourer in Landscape, c.1945
John Craxton: Head of a Man, c.1960s
John Craxton: Reclining Male Nude, c.1970s
John Craxton: Lanzarote Landscape, c.1973
John Craxton: Dancer VII, c1950s
John Craxton: Still Life, c1960
John Craxton: Horse and Rider, c1960s
John Craxton: Sleeping Cat, c1960s
John Craxton Prints
John Craxton: Boy in a Fig Tree
John Craxton: Cat and Mirror, 1992
John Craxton: Two Cats Playing, 1995
John Craxton: Cats and Chair, 1997
John Craxton: Chrismouse, 2002
John Craxton: Olive Trees, 2008
