Humphrey Ocean

Humphrey Ocean was born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon, on 22 June 1951 in Sussex, England. He went to Ampleforth College and in 1967 went to Tunbridge Wells School of Art for two years, going on to do a Foundation Course at Brighton College of Art and DipAD Painting at Canterbury College of Art.

It was at Canterbury that he was taught by Ian Dury, then a painter. From 1971 he was bass player with the band Kilburn and the High Roads formed at Canterbury with Dury. They opened for The Who on its Christmas tour in 1973, after which Ocean resigned from music with the notable exception of recording the single "Whoops-a-Daisy" written by Ian Dury and Russell Hardy, for Stiff Records in 1978.

In 1983, Ocean painted Paul McCartney's portrait as part of the first prize in the 1982 Imperial Tobacco Portrait Award with his painting Lord Volvo and his Estate and the following year painted the poet Philip Larkin's portrait, also for the National Portrait Gallery,[2] a work described by the novelist Nick Hornby as "unanswerable".

Philip Larkin, acrylic on canvas, 1984, Humphrey Ocean (NPG 5746)

In 1988 Ocean travelled to Northern Brazil with the American anthropologist Stephen Nugent, a lecturer at the University of London, eager to expose colonial caricatures of the region. Their subsequent book, Big Mouth: The Amazon Speaks, was published by Fourth Estate (HarperCollins) in 1990, and features evocative illustrations of Brazil. In 1999 the National Maritime Museum commissioned Ocean to paint a picture of modern maritime Britain. Throughout the 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century, Ocean's paintings were exhibited in many of the leading museums in the United Kingdom.

In 2002, Ocean was Artist-in-Residence at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, culminating in how's my driving, an exhibition linking 17th-century Dutch genre paintings with south London suburbia.[3] That year he was awarded an honorary fellowship by Canterbury College of Art where he had been a student between 1970-1973.[4] In 2009 he worked on an Artangel project Life Class: Today's Nude directed by Alan Kane, shown on Channel 4 television. He also painted Catherine Hughes in her role as principal of Somerville College, Oxford.

Gabor, gouache on paper, 2009 Humphrey Ocean

Etching

Black Love Chair, aquatint, 2004 Humphrey Ocean

In addition to his portrait of Philip Larkin, he is perhaps best known for his iconic etching, Black Love Chair, which appeared on the cover of Paul McCartney's 2007 album Memory Almost Full.[5] This is an image McCartney chose from the series of etchings begun in 2003 when Ocean was working with Maurice Payne in Miankoma Studio in Amagansett, Long Island.

An armchair (page from Dot Book 1999-2001) Humphrey Ocean

Roadsign, enamel on steel, 2015 Humphrey Ocean (for the 50th Anniversary of the British Road Sign exhibition at the Design Museum)

Ocean was elected a Royal Academician in 2004. He was Royal Academy Professor of Perspective 2012 - 2020, a position once held by J. M. W. Turner.

In 2013 Lord Volvo and his Estate (1982) by Ocean was voted one of 57 of the nation’s favourite paintings and appeared on billboards around Britain in Art Everywhere organised by the Art Fund.[6] In 2014 he completed a portrait[7] of Randy Lerner for the National Portrait Gallery. In the same year he advised on Turner's approach to perspective in Mike Leigh’s film Mr Turner.

In 2015 he was made an Honorary Doctor by the University of Kent and in 2016 he was appointed a trustee of the Royal Drawing School. Ocean designed a road sign for his friend Margaret Calvert for the 50th Anniversary of the British Road Sign exhibition at the Design Museum (2015) and showed in books + papers (2015), "Wären Fluss und Meere Tinte..." (2017) and books + papers 2 (2019) at Christine Koenig Galerie, Vienna.[8]

For the BBC, on Radio 4 he featured in Will Gompertz Gets Creative (2015), presented The Essay on Radio 3 on Impington Village College (2016) and Only Artists with Mark Alexander on Radio 4 (2018). In 2018 Ocean's solo exhibition I've No Idea Either of works on paper and sculpture was at Sims Reed Gallery London. In 2019 he had a solo exhibition Birds, Cars and Chairs in the Keeper's House at the Royal Academy of Arts. A 320 page full colour monograph of his work was published by the Royal Academy of Arts in autumn 2019. Simultaneously published by the RA is A Book of Birds by Humphrey Ocean. In 2020 he showed his painting Self in Me, Myself, I at Christine Koenig Galerie, Vienna. Fresh as Paint, Ocean's personal selection of objects and art from the school collections will be shown at Eton College in 2022.

Humphrey Ocean is married to artist Miranda Argyle and has two daughters, Ruby and Beatrice. He lives and works in south London.

• 1984: Paul McCartney New Portrait by Humphrey Ocean And Pictures Made on the 1976 Wings Tour, National Portrait Gallery
• 1992: Double-Portrait, Tate Liverpool
• 1997: urbasuburba (with Jock McFadyen), the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
• 1999: The Painter's Eye (with John Tchalenko), National Portrait Gallery, London
• 2003: how's my driving, Dulwich Picture Gallery
• 2006: How do you look (film with John Tchalenko), Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England
• 2009: Perfectly Ordinary, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury Christ Church University
• 2011: Here and There, Jesus College Cambridge
• 2012: A handbook of modern life, National Portrait Gallery, London
• 2018: I've No Idea Either, Sims Reed Gallery, London
• 2019: Birds, Cars and Chairs, Keeper's House, Royal Academy of Arts, London
• 2022: Fresh as Paint, Verey Gallery, Eton College

• British Council, London
• Bruges-Zeebrugge Port Authority, Belgium
• Christ Church, Oxford
• Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
• Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge
• Hertford College, Oxford
• Imperial War Museum, London
• National Maritime Museum, London
• National Portrait Gallery, London
• Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
• Queen Mary College, London
• Royal Academy of Arts, London
• Royal Library, Windsor Castle
• Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
• Royal Society of Chemistry
• Somerville College, Oxford
• St Cross College, Oxford
• St John's College, Cambridge
• Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
• South London Gallery
• University of Birmingham
• Victoria & Albert Museum, London
• Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
• Wolverhampton Art Gallery

• 25 paintings by or after Humphrey Ocean at the Art UK site