Biography
Derek Hirst (b. in Doncaster, Yorkshire, UK 1930 - d. Chichester, Sussex, UK) attended Doncaster School of Art, 1946–8 and then studied at Royal College of Art, London, 1948–51; on graduating he destroyed all his student work apart from a small self-portrait. Instead of visiting major art galleries, Hirst preferred to study exhibits in the Natural History and Science Museums. In the early 1950s he journeyed through France to Spain and was much influenced by the Lascaux cave paintings, discovered Catalonia and for the next two decades spent part of each year there. In 1964 he was taken by the Islamic architecture in Morocco, evident in paintings he then produced, while the landscape of his native Yorkshire also remained as a constant, the Native American art, seen while teaching in Toronto, inspired some of Hirst’s most impressive heraldic images.
Hirst was artist-in-residence at Sussex University in 1966, five years after his first one-man show, at Drian Galleries. Other solo shows included Sussex University, the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne and a retrospective at Angela Flowers Gallery in 1979. In the early 1970s, Hirst had taught at Philadelphia College of Art and York University, Toronto but from 1976–87, back in Britian, was the principal lecturer in painting at Kingston Polytechnic.
A visit to the Far East in 1985 produced the Garden Metaphor Kyoto series and the Andalusian series was produced from the mid-1990s. The landscape around Church Norton, near Pagham Harbour, inspired Hirst but many attempts would be produced before he waa satisfied. Later solo shows included Flowers East, 1995 and 1999, and Flowers West, Santa Monica, California, 2001.
