Alexander Mackenzie (9 April 1923 – 18 September 2002)^[1] was a British abstract artist, an active member of the Penwith Art Society and Newlyn Art Gallery and educator. Mackenzie was born on 9 April 1923 in Liverpool. He was married to Coralie Crockett and the couple had three daughters, Pat, Althea and Rachel.

He had a brother named Paul Mackenzie who had three daughters Alison, Alexandra and Elli Mackenzie.^[2]

Career

At the beginning of the war his school as evacuated to Newburgh Priory, which was part of his introduction to art – he later described it as "a marvellous place, filled with tapestries and paintings".^[3]

As soon as he was old enough, he enlisted in the army, serving for 5 years in the armoured Inns of Court Regiment and fighting in the European theatre of war, including commanding an armoured car up the beaches on D-Day.^[4] In 1945 he was de-mobed and went to study at Liverpool College of Art.

In 1950, immediately after graduating from Liverpool, he moved to Cornwall, where he soon established close relationships with many artists, including Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth He was based there for the rest of his life.

For several years he taught art at Leskudjack school in Penzance before, in 1964, being invited to become a senior lecturer at Plymouth College of Art, where he stayed for 20 years, ending up as head of fine art.

In 1959, he had his first one-person exhibition, at the Waddington Galleries in London.^[5] In 1960, he took part in the 21st Watercolour Biennale in New York and, in 1962, he was in the Premio Marzotto exhibition in Rome. He died in Penzance on 18 September 2002.

His auction record is £27,500, set for Gwithian at Christie's, London, on 27 May 2010.^[6]

Collections

His Drawing, June 1963 is in the Tate collection.^[7] Two works are in the Arts Council collection.^[8]

Mackenzie's art work can be seen at Bishop Suter Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand, Brasenose College, University of Oxford, Bradford City Art Gallery, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation collection, the Contemporary Art Society collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, the Nuffield Foundation collection, Plymouth City Art Gallery,^[9] Salford Museum & Art Gallery^[10] and York Art Gallery.

Exhibitions

Mackenzie exhibited widely throughout his life and posthumously, and was included in the following significant exhibitions:

Bibliography

• Herbert Read & Roland Penrose: Premio Marzotto Award Catalogue, 1963
• A. Cumming: Profile of Alexander Mackenzie, Arts Review, Vol XX No.20
• Sir Herbert Read: Contemporary British Art, Penguin Publications, 1964
• Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art, Phaidon Press, 1973
• Tate Gallery, Catalogue of Acquisitions 1976-8
• Arts Council Collection, 1979
• Richard Mabey: Second Nature, Jonathon Cape, 1984
• Tate Gallery, St Ives 1939–64, Tate Gallery Publications, 1985
• Alan Windsor: Handbook of Modern British Painting 1900–1980, Scolar Press, 1992
• Peter Davies: St Ives Revisited, Old Bakehouse Publications, 1994
• Melissa Hardie: 100 Years in Newlyn/Diary of a Gallery, Pattten Press, 1995
• David Archer: Alexander Mackenzie, Austin/Desmond Fine Art, 1999
• Michael Bird: Alexander Mackenzie: In character, Austin/Desmond, 2007
• Keith Chapman: 'Alexander Mackenzie - Paintings 1951 to 2001', Styca Publishing, 2023

References

External links

• Alexander Mackenzie's obituary in the Guardian
• Exhibition catalogue from Austin/Desmond exhibition in 2009
• Alexander Mackenzie in the Cornwall Artists' Index
• Alexander Mackenzie - Paintings 1951-2001 book 2023