Biography: Ian McKeever

Ian McKeever’s first contact with professional artists was in 1969, when he rented a studio from SPACE, an artists’ collective working at St. Katherine’s Dock, in the heart of London’s dockland. His first exhibition was in 1971 when he was invited to participate in an exhibition of SPACE artists in Berlin. Through this contact he began lecturing at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Since then he has taught extensively in Great Britain, Germany and the USA. He is currently Visiting Professor in Painting at the Faculty of Art and Architecture at the University of Brighton and Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy School of Arts in London. In 2003 he was elected a Royal Academician. McKeever has written numerous texts and essays on art, including Black and White and How to Paint with a Hammer in 1982, Thoughts on Emil Nolde in 1996 and In Praise of Painting, three essays in 2005.

In 1989 McKeever was given the prestigious DAAD scholarship to live and work in Berlin. This was followed in 1990 by a major retrospective exhibition of his work at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Since 1971 he has exhibited extensively including major exhibitions at the Kunstverein Braunschweig in 1987, the Porin Taidemuseo in 1997, the Kunsthallen Brandts Klaederfabrik, Odense in 2001, the Morat Institute, Freiburg in 2005 and has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Dialogue Moderna Museet, Stockholm in 1985 , New Abstraction at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, Reina Sofia, Madrid and Museo d’Art Contemporarie , Barcelona in 1996, and Royal Academicians in China at the National Art Gallery in Beijing, the Shanghai Art Museum and The Royal Academy, London in 2005/06.

The work is presented in numerous public collections in Europe and the USA including Tate Gallery, London, British Museum, London, Arts Council of Great Britain, The Government Art Collecton, The British Council, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, Morat Institute, Freiburg, Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Kunsthalle Nuremberg, Kunsthalle Kiel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humleback, New Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, Horsens Kunstmuseum, Nordic Aquarell Museum, Sweden, Kiasma, Helsinki, Metropolitain Museum, New York, Yale Center for British Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts and Cincinnati Museum of Modern Art, Cincinnati.

Ian McKeever lives and works in Dorset, England