User:Milesga

Bohuslav Barlow - artist
Bohuslav Barlow was born 8th July 1947 as Bohuslav Klos in Bruntal, Moravia.

He was the illegitimate son of a Czechoslovakian father and a Sudeten German mother. Having fled post war Czechoslovakia he was brought up by his grandparents in Furstenfeldbruck, Germany until 8 years old. He then moved to Blackpool to be reunited with his mother who had married a black American Guyanan posted at the US base in Preston. He subsequently lived in poverty in Blackburn and then Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire.

Following on from grammar school he studied a foundation year in art at Manchester School of Art and then moved to London and gained a Dip A.D (Hons) in Fine Art at St Martins Central School of Art. Having spent three years in London he then rejected the teaching and market demands of the art scene prevalent at the time, and moved to the relative exile and isolation of Todmorden, Lancs.

He immersed himself into a mysterious and imaginary world of puppets, toys, animals, masks and dark landscapes to reflect his reaction to the effects of wartime displacement and an alienated childhood. Following on from the suicide of his mother he sold a large body of previously retained work in 2008 and has a result been the subject of a resurgence in profile and popularity.

In 1981 he received the Yorkshire Arts Award and his work was the subject of a biography entitled ‘Visual Alchemy’ published in 1987 by Babylon Books with text by Jeff Nuttall. He is listed in’ Who’s Who in Art’, and the ‘Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945’ and is represented in the Public Arts Foundation. Principal medium is oil, but produced many works in acrylics and pastels. He has been the subject of articles in ‘Lancashire Life’ (1990), ‘Homes and Antiques’ (1994) and the ‘Yorkshire Journal’ (2001). He is a member of Mensa International.

He has undertaken commissions for:

-The Bronte Society

-Sainsbury’s Trust

-MEPC Investments

-Scaitcliffe Estates

-The High Sheriff of West Yorkshire

-CODA magazine

His works have featured on television and in numerous public, private and corporate collections including:

-Leeds City Council

-Rochdale Municipal Gallery

-Mid-Pennine Arts Association

-The Monument Trust

-MEPC plc

-Provident Financial

-Coopers, Lybrand Deloitte

-The Bronte Society

-Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale

-Warman International Ltd

-The Royal Family of Saudi Arabia

-N. Rothchild

-Hon. Angus Ogilvy

-Hon. D. Thompson

-Hon. C. McCafferty

-Bob Beckman

-Beryl Reid

-Michael Angelis

-Helen Worth

Quotes regarding his work are as follows:

The Guardian:

“Barlow’s work is hardly consoling but it has a sense of strange and personal integrity…….he can extract painful intensity from a subject as uncompromising as an old toy discarded in an empty grate.”

Manchester Evening News:

“One of the most original artists working in the North West.”

Hampstead & Highgate Express:

“His work is charged with a sense of theatrical melodrama, as though his characters have crawled from the props basket and, a travesty of reality, are draped in a Transylvanian dreamscape”

The Yorkshire Post:

“A highly original and fascinating artist”

Coastal Review USA:

“Barlow’s presence and his work are a distinction for Maine.”

Yorkshire Journal:

“In looking at Barlow’s work. One senses some sort of mythology, albeit a very personal one. The circumstances of his early life meant that he was ripped away from his roots, and had to construct fresh myths and traditions for himself……ultimately it is for observers, standing in front of any of these paintings, to construct their own mythologies from the exciting clues which Bohuslav Barlow has provided.”

Selected exhibitions:

1970 – Royal Soc Painters, Etchers and Engravers

1973 – Rochdale Municipal gallery

1974 – Northern Artists Gallery, Leeds

1975 – Portico Library Gallery, Manchester

1976 – Hartnoll & Eyre, London

1977 – Mathaf Gallery, London

1978 – Sultanate of Oman/Mathaf Gallery

1980 – Northern Artists Gallery, Harrogate

1980 – Hawthornden Gallery, London

1981 – Oldham Municipal Gallery

1982 – British Artists Show, Chelsea (bronze medal)

1982 – Manchester Academy (1st place)

1982 – Woodlands Gallery, Greenwich

1983/4/6/8/94 – Chalk Farm Gallery, London

1983/4/5/6/ – Ginnel Gallery, Manchester

1984 – Dryden St Gallery, London

1984/5/6 – International Contemporary Art Fair, London

1985 – Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

1985 - Richard Parks Gallery, California, USA

1987 - House of Commons Gallery, London

1988 – Bury Municipal Gallery

1988 – Mid-Pennine Gallery, Burnley

1989 – Grundy Municipal Gallery, Blackpool

1990 – Harrogate Municipal Gallery

1991 – Arts Intaglio Gallery, Manchester

1991 – Leeds Art Fair

1991 – Roy Miles Gallery, London

1991 – Atkinson Gallery, Southport

1993 – Barn Gallery, Manchester

1994 – Contemporary Art Fair, Islington, London

1994 – John Jones Open, London

1994 – The Gallery, Manchester

1996 – Veem Gallery, Philadelphia, USA

1996 – Posk Gallery, London

1997 – Zantman Gallery, California, USA

References