Biography
Derrick Greaves (b. Sheffield, UK 1927 - d. Norfolk, UK 2022) trained as a draughtsman in a foundry at the age of 14 and then, from 1943 he was apprenticed for five years to a signwriter whilst attending art evening classes. He won a Scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he studied between 1948–52, under Carel Weight (1908-1997) obtaining a Travelling Scholarship to Italy (1952–4) where he met Renato Guttuso (1912-1987) and other Italian Realists. He was included in the socialist critic John Berger's Looking Forward, Whitechapel Gallery in 1952 that cemented his reputation and the following year he had his first one-man exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in 1953. His work was shown with that of Jack Smith (his childhood friend), John Bratby and Edward Middleditch - the so-called 'kitchen-sink' school - in the British Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 1956. He visited the Soviet Union in 1957 and participated with seven other English artists in the South London Art Gallery exhibition Looking at People re-staged in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow. He was awarded the Gold Medal for Painting at Moscow Youth Festival, and a special prize in the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 1957. His palette had brightened and he was producing more abstract and Pop Art in the 1960s. He had solo exhibitions at the ICA (1972) and Whitechapel Gallery (1973) and a retrospective at Graves Art Gallery (1980). He taught painting at the St Martin's School of Art since 1955 and printmaking at Norwich School of Art from 1983. He is represented by James Hyman Gallery.
