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| John Scanes was born in Whitechapel, London, in 1928. His life in art can be traced from the age of 14, when he began to draw and sketch whilst working as an office boy in the City during World War 2. He had no formal schooling after that age, and was entirely self-taught as an artist. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| After National Service, he worked in the paper and pharmaceutical industries before becoming a full-time artist and sculptor in 1959. He was part of the early 1960s movements which aimed to bring art within the reach of everybody. To that end, he exhibited at both the Whitechapel Art Gallery at its inception and the Chelsea Show. He taught in the Graphic Design Department at the Central School of Art, London, in the mid-late 1960s. After his wife’s sudden death in 1969 he resigned from the Central School and returned to free-lance work. He moved to Faringdon, Oxfordshire, in 1997, where he continued working and exhibiting until his death in 2004. He worked in mixed-media, juxtaposing low-relief metal sculpture with painting and drawing and the effects of charring. His work was always experimental, particularly the use of paint effects with oils, and relief using metal fillers, plaster, semi-precious stones and woods. His sculptures make extensive use of found objects. His aim always was the transformation of the perceived subject into another form using the artist’s skill. He explored two major themes. One theme was dictated by his wife’s death: Lazarus and the concepts of resurrection, rebirth and material change. He illustrated two poetic cycles to explore this theme: the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the Celtic Tree Alphabet in the Song of Amergin from The White Goddess by Robert Graves. Throughout his work he constantly used motifs taken from the hieroglyphs and religious figures of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and from early European cave art and standing stones, and later rock art such as the Tassili frescoes. The White Horse, lying broken on its hill, was one of his favourite recurring studies. His second theme, less well-represented in his personal collection, was London and the urban environment, particularly the effects of poverty on the spirit. In his memoirs he wrote movingly of his childhood in the Docklands of the East End during the Depression of the 1930s. He also wrote and illustrated a cycle of children’s stories, which remains unpublished. John Scanes’ works are in private collections and galleries throughout the world. All the works exhibited here are from his personal collection and have never been shown in public before. There is also a presentation from his portfolio of sold works, present locations unknown. |
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