About John Ross
Well if it’s my artlife and influences I need describe; I first attended the Northampton School of Art in the September of 1967. I had just spent that summer as a Bluecoat on Pontin’s Holiday Camp at Blackpool where I honed my skills as a swimming pool attendant, music hall turn and Beatle Freak. And that was 57 years ago. Tempus Fugit. Tick bastard Tock!
Nutshelling up my stuff over those nearly six decades, in what can only be very loosely described as a ‘career,’ I have entertained myself (and sometimes others) from a serendipitous junkshop mix of: Drawing, Painting, Printmaking ( copper etching) Scriptwriting, Comedy, Illustrating, Cartooning, Newspapering, Teaching, Walking (with Longdogs,) The Landscape, Ornithology, The Grim North, The Hot South, Poetry, Gardening, The Theatre (of the Absurd,) Singing and sort of Dancing, The Art of Goalkeeping, Fighting, Drinking and now Teatotalism..... all in no particular order or preference.
The unreliable chronology of it all can be viewed in my curriculum vitae below:
CV
Born
Leicester 1949
Studied
Northampton School of Art, 1967-69
Leeds Polytechnic Fine Art, BA Hons,1969-72 Royal College of Art, MA (RCA), 1972-75
Awards
Sunday Times Illustration Prize, 1974
Berger Drawing Prize, 1975
Anglo – American Bicentennial Fellowship, 1978-79
Academic Experience
Leeds Metropolitan University
Central Saint Martins School of Art
Wimbledon School of Art
Liverpool John Moores University
Manchester Metropolitan University
Bradford School of Art
University of Ulster
Glasgow School of Art Falmouth School of Art
Norwich School of Art
Salisbury College of Art
San Jose State University, California
California College of Arts and Crafts
University College Los Angeles
University of British Columbia
Royal Academy of Music, London
National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Editorial Commissions
The Sunday Times
The TimesThe Guardian
The Sunday Telegraph
The Manchester Evening News
The Yorkshire Miner
The New York Times
The San Francisco Sun
Le Monde
Le Figaro
Frankfurter Allgemeiner
Het Parool
Solo Exhibitions
The Mordant Drawings (Achim Moeller Gallery, London 1974)
Double Top You Want, Madame Recamier (Cite des Arts Internationale, Paris 1974)
What Made Josh Tetley Famous (Berger House, London 1975)
Of Malt Shovels and Metaphysics (Mirandy Gallery, London 1976)
The New Fossils (J. Walter Thompson, London 1976)
Looking Black over Bill’s Mother’s (Thornton Gallery, Bradford 1977)
The Black Dog and the Wild Turkeys (San Jose State University Gallery, California 1979)
Watch out Son this is Cougar Country (UCLA Gallery, California 1980)
The Ancient Wing (McCann Erikson Ltd., London 1981)
As Common as Muck (Bolton Museum and Art Gallery 1983)
Nils Illegitemae te Carborundum (Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax 1989)
Skating on Thin Ice (The Norwich Gallery 1995)
Faith, Hope and Charity Revisited (National Museum of Fine Arts, Valetta, Malta 1996) Words and Pictures (Mall Gallery, London 1996)
Gnawing at the Bones of Contention (Huddersfield Art Gallery 1998)
Trumpeting up the Dusty Schism of New Radicalism (Workhouse Gallery, Chelsea 2000)
Dog Years (Volksbank Gallery, Tubingen, Germany 2001)
Black Heat and Dangerous Orange (Unicorn Gallery, London 2002)
From the University of Doubt To The Bulging Sumpters of Bercium (Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax 2005) Der Britische Bilder (A.Paul Weber Museum, Ratzeburg, Germany 2008)
The Song of the Earth (Frost & Reed Gallery, London, 2008)
The Song Of the Earth, Part 2 (Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax, 2009)
Drawing Blood and Spitting Thistles (St.Paul’s School Gallery, London, 2011)
The Pig in Art ( The Artworks 1830 Gallery, Halifax, 2015)
The Ancient Hills of Almeria (Almeria University, Spain, 2016)
Two Man Exhibition
The Trains of Thought have left the Rails of Reason - The Black and Blue Period (The Mall Gallery, London 2006) With Paul Slater
Collections
Victoria and Albert Museum
Imperial War Museum
Vancouver City Museum
Leicester City Art Gallery
Leeds City Art Gallery
Bolton Museum and Art Gallery
Ralph Steadman
J. Walter Thompson Collection
Korn Ferry Collection
The Late Sir Stephen Spender
The Late Dame Elizabeth Frink
The Late Dennis Compton
Animated Films
Co-scripted Angry George Irons for Channel 4 (Winner of the British Film Institution Award for Animation 1994)
Co-scripted The Ticker Talks for BBC TV (Winner of a BAFTA Nomination 1996)
Worked with director Steven Harding–Hill on projects for Aardman Animation, Bristol
Publications
The Biggin Hill Frescoes (Lion and Unicorn Press, London 1975)
Illustrated The Correct Sadist by Terence Sellars (Lane Publications, New York 1980)
The Bison (Hanborough Parrot Press, Oxford 1988)
Words and Pictures or as Quiet as an Eel in a Barrel of Tripe (Retrospective Catalogue, Arcturus Publishing London 1996)
The Garden of Earthly Delights In collaboration with composer Simon Bainbridge, wrote libretto for BBC Proms Commission. (First performed Cadogan Hall, London, 2013)
Individual Projects
The Artworks Independent Art & Design School, Shaw Lodge Mills, Halifax. Launched in 2008 The Artworks is set in a massive historic mill setting. We work from Primary School to Ph.D, collaborate with universities and the NHS, we have a 1st rate multi purpose gallery set in a former weaving shed. Further to this we pride ourselves on our policy of being open to all. www.theartworks.org.uk (2008 - present)
Royal Academy of Music Working with Simon Bainbridge, Professor of Composition at R.A.M. organised an annual collaborative film project between students of R.A.M. (undergraduate, post-graduate and Ph.D) and those of The Bristol School of Animation, University of the West of England.(2003 to present) The results of these collaborations have been shown to a wide audience and to great critical acclaim, academic and professional. (2005 - 2014)
Friends of Beaumont Park A central fund-raising and project managing involvement in the ongoing restoration of Beaumont Park, a glorious 29 acre Victorian park in the Pennines, on the outskirts of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. (1998 - 2010).