John Bartlett was born in London in 1960. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1991-4. On leaving Art School he supported his Art Practice working at the National Gallery, London. In 2013 he relocated to Folkestone, Kent with his partner and young son and has devoted his energies full-time to Art Projects since then.
Bartlett’s work is held in private and public collections throughout the world. He is best known to date for his monumental work ‘History Painting’ (1993/4) which now forms an integral part of the museum of London’s permanent collection. This contentious work has received a great deal of media coverage In Britain over the years primarily because it depicts the 1990 Poll tax Riots in Trafalgar Square. In 2010 it was reproduced as 9 x 18ft posters on the London Underground as part of a promotional campaign for the MOL. In 2017 it featured in the book ‘London in the Company of Painters’ published by Laurence King.
Other career highlights include a commission for Heathrow Airport and large scale acquisitions made by the Guildhall Art Gallery and the V&A Museum of Childhood. He also has a selection of his drawings in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts and these were included in their survey of 20th Century Works in the exhibition ‘Driven to Draw’.
In 2012-13 the Guildhall Art Gallery held a mid-career retrospective of his work featuring over fifty of his paintings and drawings in an exhibition entitled ‘London Sublime’. It brought together for the first time all of his major compositions to which he added a temporal twenty five foot wall drawing/installation that he created in situ especially for the show enforcing how important drawing is to his creative process.
More recently he was included in the 2022 exhibition ‘New Contemporaries & Modern British Art’ at the Osbourne Samuel gallery, Mayfair.
In 2023 he returned after a decade to the Guildhall with his large scale work ‘Cars & Chaos’ (1995/6) included in the exhibition ‘The Big City’.
This website is not a catalogue raisonne of Bartlett’s work – a comprehensive survey of all drawings, paintings & prints he has made. it is a hand picked selection of works chosen from a career that spans over four decades & more. They are pieces from a jigsaw that helps him + the viewer make sense of what he has been doing and for Bartlett it assists him in the work he will do in the future.
BORN
1960 London
EDUCATION
1991-94 Royal Academy Schools – Post Graduate in Painting
1990-91 Byam Shaw School of Art – PG in Fine Art (Painting)
1980-83 Maidstone College of Art – B.A. (Hons) Degree in Fine Art (Painting)
1979-80 Braintree College of Further Education – Foundation Course in Art & Design
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Safe House – virtual online exhibition
https://onlineviewingroom.com/exhibition/EV6UZ87EH4DV/
2014 Interference – Osborne Gallery, Belgravia
2012-13 London Sublime – Guildhall Art Gallery, London
2009 Anonymous – Tate Newington
1994 Street – Yarrow Gallery, Oundle Public School
1988 Ways of Seeing – Braintree Arts Centre
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Salon Des Etrangers – Venice Italy
A.A.F. Singapore – Siger Gallery
A.A.F Hong Kong – Siger Gallery
A.A.F Battersea – Siger Gallery
2023
Affordable Art Fair – Singapore – Siger Gallery
Summer Open – Townhouse Spitalfields, London
The Big City – Guildhall Art Gallery, London
Spring Open – Folkestone Art Gallery
2022
Christmas Open – Folkestone Art Gallery
London Art Fair – Osborne Samuel Gallery
Modern British & Contemporary – Osborne Samuel Gallery, London
2020
Spring Exhibition – JP Art Gallery – Blackheath, London
2018
Long Summer Show – John Martin Gallery, London
2017
Chiaroscuro – Alex Macarthur Interiors – Rye, East Sussex
London Art Fair – Cynthia Corbett Gallery
2016
Started showing with McCully & Crane – Rye East Sussex
2015
Lynn Painter Stainer’s Prize Exhibition – Mall Galleries, London
2014
Beano’s Café & Bloom’s Restaurant – Folkestone Triennial (Fringe)
2013
Invited Artist – R.A. Summer Show, London
Safe House – Snowfields, London
2012
Panasonic Product Launch – ICA, London
2011/12
Driven to Draw – Royal Academy of Arts, London
2010
Lynn Painter Stainer’s Prize Exhibition, London
2006
City of Heaven, City of Hell – Guildhall Art Gallery, London
2002
Group Show – Adam Street Gallery, London
2001
Creative Quarters – the Art world in London 1700 – 2000 – Museum of London
Staff Exhibition – National Gallery, London
2000
Acme Open Studios – Bonner Road, London
1999
Selected Figurative Artists – Marks & Spencer’s H.Q. London
Conflicts of Interest – Museum of London
1998
Whitechapel Open Studios, London
1996-97
The Motor Show –– Art Circuit touring exhibition
1996
Whitechapel Open Studios, London
1994
R.A. School’s Final Show
R.A. Summer Show
Out of the Nineties – Mall Galleries, London
R.A. School’s Premiums Show – Sotheby’s, London
Greenwich Theatre Foyer, London
1993
Cocktail – Raw Gallery, London
Mick Rooney R.A. & six selected artists – Bone Gallery, London
1992
R.A. Summer Show
R.A. School’s Premium’s Show – Royal Academy of Arts, London
1991
Post Graduate Final Show – Byam Shaw School of Art, London
1983
Stowell’s Trophy – Royal Academy Arts, London
Degree Show – Maidstone College of Art
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Museum of London
V&A Museum of Childhood
Guildhall Art Gallery, London
Royal Academy of Arts
COMMISSIONS
1995 – B.A.A. – Heathrow Airport
AWARDS
1994 Richard Ford Award (Spanish Scolarship)
1994 Residency – Oundle Public School
1994 Richard Jack Prize
1992 Edwin Landseer Scholarship
1992 Eric Kennington prize for drawing
1991 Bird’s Charity (R.A.)
1991 Bernard Bershinger Bursary
1979 William Lake Prize