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Paul Huxley

Born in London, 1938.

Studied at Harrow School of Art from 1951 until 1956 when, at the age of seventeen, he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools where he graduated in 1960.

Huxley's early promise was recognised when he was featured in the 1959 ‘Young Contemporaries’ exhibition and given a solo exhibition in London in 1963; the following year he was among the artists selected for the celebrated showcase for emerging talent ‘The New Generation’ exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. This earned him first prize in the Peter Stuyvesant Travel Awards enabling him to visit New York where he met and befriended several important American artists of the day, including Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. In 1965 a Harkness Fellowship allowed him to return to work in New York for two years which culminated in his first international solo show.

Over the years since then Huxley has developed an impressive body of work shown frequently in national and international exhibitions - work which draws upon European movements in art, such as cubism and surrealism, as well as the legacy of American abstraction. His paintings typically involve the fine balancing of simple shapes using colour to accentuate contrasts between geometric and curvilinear forms.

Huxley has made a significant contribution to art in Britain through membership of advisory panels and committees for several major arts organisations as well as through his teaching. He taught painting at the Royal College of Art from 1976, finally becoming Professor of Painting in 1986 until he retired as Professor Emeritus and Honorary Fellow in 1998.

XIII 7 1986