Bio

Born in Leicester, I began studying art in 1946 at the age of 15 at Leicester College of Art. This was interrupted by National Service from 1949 to 1951, after which I resumed my studies in London at the Royal College of Art, whose alumni included John Bratby, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Bridget Riley, and Peter Blake.

Here, my work in the life-painting studios started traditionally, but the influence of London-based students and the revelatory impact of a major Matthew Smith exhibition stimulated more expressive and experimental ways of working which was praised and encouraged by tutors.

After graduation in 1954, my livelihood came from full-time teaching. At this time, visits to nearby London galleries provided a vital contact with contemporary art, as did two Summer Schools run by Victor Pasmore and Harry Thubron. Painting now being a part-time activity, I looked for employment in higher education, eventually finding the most conducive in Fine Art at the University of Reading.

From 1961, distinguished visitors and teachers at Reading included Mali Morris, John Carter, Peter Kalkof and Terry Frost. Friendship with them was instrumental in shaping my ideas and practices in art and my paintings were shown alongside theirs in joint exhibitions.

The postgraduate study of art at Reading was led by Terry Frost and this attracted many young artists, among whom Mali Morris, Stephen Buckley, Richard Wilson, Cornelia Parker and many others were to become internationally distinguished. I retired as Head of Department in 1995.

Further details may be found in the survey of my work - Art from 8 Decades – which was published in 2019 by my son and grandson. Currently out of print, it is now online and an update is planned.

— Alan Plummer, Tunbridge Wells, May 2025

“In 1954, the School of Painting at the RCA was behind the V&A Museum where I frequented the Archives to copy original Old Master drawings. The School of Sculpture, where my flatmate Ken Ford won the Rome Scholarship in his Finals, was behind the Natural History Museum and I became fascinated by and made copies from displays in the Museum’s Mathematical Models Collection. These extra-curricular experiences proved to be lasting influences in my work.

Since the mid-1950s, travel abroad to explore European museums has been revelatory, as have visits to museums in Russia and the USA reached by air. Flying alters one’s perception of space, akin to a drone view.

Today, media connects us to cultures not previously seen. Televisual and digital processes reveal new experiences in climatology, anthropology, archaeology, lexicology, our Symbols, our Galaxy.

The titles of my work created during the 1990s connect to background references: Babel, Cossack, Sakura, Ocean and so on.”