Biography
John Maine RA (b. Bristol, UK 1942) studied at the West of England College of Art (1960-64) and Royal College of Art (1964-67). He became the first fellow at Gloucestershire College of Art (1967-69) and then set up a sculpture studio in Shoreditch, London, and travelled widely, particularly in Mexico. Maine was also awarded the first fellowship at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (1979-80). He subsequently worked in Carrara, Italy and attended the Hagi Symposium in Japan. He was commissioned by the Government Art Collection to make a sculpture for the British High Commission in Canberra, Australia where he spent a year carving a granite work. He worked in situ to carve Arena outside the National Theatre. on the South Bank, London. This practice of creating large works in landscape was developed further in Portland, Dorset, where he made the Chiswell Earthworks, as part of the Common Ground New Milestones Project.
During the 1970s and 1980s Maine was a part-time lecturer in many art colleges, including the Royal College of Art, London. Subsequently, he has become an external assessor for various BA Hons and MA courses, and lectures occasionally. His first solo exhibition was held at the Serpentine Gallery(1972). Since then he has shown regularly in Britain, with occasional exhibitions abroad. Among his group exhibitions are The Condition of Sculpture, Hayward Gallery, London (1975), A Silver Jubilee Exhibition of Contemporary British Sculpture, Battersea Park, London (1977), Sculptors’ Drawings, The British Council Tour of the Far East (1984), From Art to Archaeology, South Bank Centre and tour (1991), Sculpture at Goodwood (1995) and Sculpture, an Abbey and a Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral (2000). He made Strata, a 10M high granite monument, to commemorate the completion of the Ryugasaki New Town Development in Iberaki, Japan and spent several years working in a multi-disciplinary team for the Lewisham 2000 project. His Howden Sequence (2003) encircles Howden Minster in Yorkshire. In 2004 he completed an integrated project Seawall with engineers creating a substantial coastal protection landscape at Seaview on the Isle of Wight. Recently Maine has been working for extended periods in Scotland. His Entrance Works at Standard Life House, and the 8 metre high granite sculpture at the Royal Bank of Scotland, both in Edinburgh, are closely integrated with aspects of architecture.
Maine was elected Royal Academician in 1995 and a Member of the Royal West of England Academy in 1997. He has been a Commissioner at the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England since 1996. He is a member of the Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission and the Fabric Advisory Committee of St. George’s Windsor.
