Biography
Born in Exeter in 1937, Ray Atkins was attracted to art from an early age. Ray Atkins started his studies at the age of 16 at Bromley College of Art, returning after military service he was inspired and stimulated by the teaching methods of his tutor, the young Frank Auerbach who seemed to echo his own concerns.
After Bromley Ray went on to pursue his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art at London University. This decision to commit himself to art created a rupture with his parents. Auerbach appeared again in the buzzing atmosphere of the 60's at the Slade. Ray Atkins worked hard at painting in the lodgings and back gardens wherever he lived – often in difficult conditions. The London period ended with a series of large paintings about and of Millwall Dock.
In 1965 Ray took a teaching position at Reading University, moving to live there three years later. Ray found the space and light of the town exciting after the conditions he had known in London. Ray continued to develop his work, painting on-site in order to immerse himself physically, intellectually and emotionally in the environment he had chosen. He painted roads, building sites, railway sidings, and, on the edge of town, gravel pit lakes and a quarry.
This series of paintings was exhibited at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1974 and at Reading Museum in 2017.
Leaving Reading in 1974 Ray took a teaching post at Falmouth Art School in Cornwall where he continued to develop his work, often painting in-situ. There he found industrial sites, mines, quarries and tips in a wilder and more savage environment. The dynamism and energy of human effort in this situation was powerful.
Ray Atkins moved to Aspet in France in 2008 in the foothills of the Pyrenees. He is surrounded by forest. Its density seems to change as a function of the light. He has learned to adapt to the irresistible natural forces. The forest is the principal subject of his work at Aspet, but he has also painted the cellulose factory at St Gaudens, and drawn the passage of the Tour de France in2016.
Ray Atkins’ work has been acquired by and/or exhibited in many collections over the decades, such as the British Council, the Newlyn Art Gallery, the British Museum, and the collection of Reading University. A book about Ray’s artistic endeavours was published in 2024, written by the well known and regarded Peter Davies.