| AdminHistory | Lawrence Gowing (1918-1991) was Slade Professor 1975-1985.
Gowing began studying painting under William Coldstream in 1938 at what became the Euston Road School. Having been brought up a Quaker he was a conscientious objector during WWII. He became recognised as a painter in the 1940s and was particularly sought after for his portraiture, painting many eminent sitters, but he was also a keen open-air landscape painter. He was a protege of the Bloomsbury art critic Clive Bell.
Before the end of WWII Gowing started to teach at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts alongside Coldstream and Victor Pasmore. He then took up the post of Professor of Fine Art at what is now the University of Newcastle (1948-1958), then of Principal of the new Chelsea School of Art (1958-1965), Professor of Fine Art at the University of Leeds (1967-1975) and finally Principal and Professor of Fine Art at the Slade (1975-1985).
Gowing was also a highly respected art historian who combined teaching with writing art books and curating major exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
In 1965 he became keeper of the British Collections and Deputy Director of the Tate Gallery. He was also a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum in London, a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain and an associate of the Royal Academy of Arts. In the 1980s he travelled to the United States to serve as Kress Professor at the National Gallery in Washington DC and as curator of the Phillips Collection. He was knighted in 1982 and made a chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 1985. |