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Robyn Denny

Born 1930, Abinger Hammer, Surrey. Died 2014 in Linars, France.

Robyn Denny attended St Martin's School of Art from 1951-54. He went on to the Royal College of Art and in 1957 was awarded an Italian government scholarship. He taught at Hammersmith, Bath Academy of Art, Corsham and the Slade School of Art. He exhibited with the Young Contemporaries from 1953. In 1957 he exhibited in 'Metavisual, Tachiste, Abstract' at the Redfern Gallery, and in 1960 in 'Situation' at the RBA Galleries. He was included in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1966, alongside Anthony Caro, Richard Smith and Bernard and Harold Cohen. In 1973 he became the youngest artist to be given a retrospective exhibition at the Tate Gallery.

His exhibiting career began while still a student and he featured regularly in group and solo shows throughout his life, the latter included exhibitions at international venues in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and the USA.

He has completed a number of mural commissions for public places, including the Embankment tube station for London Transport in 1985. His work was from the beginning a severe form of colour abstraction, in the tradition of Albers, using symmetry and pattern to create optical effects. Ideally suited to silkscreen techniques, he was one of those commissioned by the ICA to work with Kelpra Studio.

His work has been acquired for many major collections including, in the UK, the Tate Gallery; the Arts Council; the British Council; the Scottish National Gallery; the Ulster Museum, Belfast and the National Museum of Wales, while collections abroad include the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo; the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Gallery of Australia, Sydney; the Peter Stuyvesant Collection, Amsterdam and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran.



The Art of Robyn Denny, David Alan Mellor, Black Dog Pub Ltd July, 2002

Robyn Denny: Early Works 1955 - 1977, Margaret Garlake, London, Jonathan Clark/Delaye Saltoun, 2008

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