Jack Crabtree (artist)

Jack Crabtree
Born1938 (1938)
Rochdale, Lancashire, England
Died2026 (aged 87)
Education
Known for
Elected56 Group Wales
PatronsNational Coal Board

Jack Crabtree (1938–2026) was an English contemporary figurative painter and teacher. He is known for a series of paintings documenting the South Wales coal industry.

Early life and education

Crabtree was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, England in 1938, the son of Roland Crabtree, a gasworks labourer and Lilian, a cotton mill worker.[1]

He studied at Rochdale College of Art,[2] then at Saint Martin's School of Art, London (1957–59) and then at Royal Academy Schools, London (1959–61).[1]

Career

After leaving the Royal Academy, Crabtree lived and worked for a number of years in Rochdale and Salford and then at Newport in South Wales, before taking up an appointment in 1984 as Professor and Head of Fine Arts at the University of Ulster in Belfast.[3]

Crabtree was elected a member of the 56 Group Wales (1971–75).[2]

By the late 1990s he had been the subject of more than 50 solo shows, including at the Howard Roberts Gallery in Cardiff, the Trafford Gallery in Mayfair and the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin. Later shows included those in 2024 at Y Tabernacl, Machynlleth and at the Ruthin Craft Centre.[4][3][1][5]

In 1994 he retired to Nantlle, in North Wales, with the loft of his house converted into a studio. He continued to work, despite gradually losing his sight.[1]

Over the course of his career he had featured in over 70 solo exhibitions. His work can be found in many public collections.[6]

Style

Crabtree was known as a Social Realist, and he was commissioned by National Coal Board to illustrate the working lives of South Wales miners in south Wales. Other commissions came from BP, Rochdale Education Authority and a mural for the Diocese of Monmouth. His 1990 show at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, included several dozen studies of the Irish writer Francis Stuart, his tribute to the painter Francis Bacon, whose work he held in high regard.[1]


Crabtree's style was described in 1978 by Margaret Richards of Tribune magazine:

"Crabtree is a social realist who works in a natural style that is neither didactic nor over-emphatic. Sometimes his imagery is exhilarating, full of energetic figures, and sometimes sad and sensitive, showing old or weary men struggling to keep going. His vision is affectionate rather than romantic. He sees wild hillsides as a beautiful setting for one of the grimmest jobs facing any man. In his paintings, that beauty and that grimness are parts of an inter-locking reality that has stimulated his creative imagination; while in his graphics the spare outlines and meticulous observation of human nature has been likened to George Grosz's. The comparison is misleading, for Crabtree's sense of humour rarely turns into satire."[7]

Teaching

Public collections

Crabree's work is kept in several public collections, including:

Awards

Notable commissions

Personal life and death

Crabtree married Mary Ellis in 1962. They had two sons, Tom and Sam. Mary died in the late 1960s.[1]

On 13 August 2026, his son Sam announced that Crabtree had died. He was 87.[1]

Writing on Instagram, MuseumWales said: "We're saddened to learn of the death of artist Jack Crabtree, whose work offered a powerful and compassionate portrait of working-class life. Crabtree developed a distinctive social realist style, documenting miners, steelworkers, industrial communities and everyday people with humanity, insight and respect."[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Crabtree, Sam (13 August 2026). "Jack Crabtree obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 August 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Moore, David (2012). A Taste of the Avant-Garde – 56 Group Wales 56 Years. Brecon, Wales: Crooked Window. p. 33. ISBN 978 0 9563602 1 2.
  3. 1 2 3 "Jack Crabtree, born 1938". ukart.org. Retrieved 14 August 2026.
  4. ↑ "....Jack Crabtree:On The Wall..Jack Crabtree: Ar Wal..." Ruthin Craft Centre The Centre for the Applied Arts.
  5. ↑ "Trafford Gallery | Artist Biographies". www.artbiogs.co.uk.
  6. 1 2 3 "Jack Crabtree". Art in Wales. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
  7. ↑ Richards, Margaret (1978), Jack Crabtree Face to Face, London: SVR Essen & Welsh Arts Council Cardiff, p. 12
  8. ↑ "Save This Pit". Art UK. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  9. ↑ "portrait-of-the-artist". Art UK.
  10. ↑ "Four Colliers in the Showers". Art UK. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  11. ↑ "Jack Crabtree". National Library of Wales. Archived from the original on 26 January 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "Crabtree, Jack, 1938- - National Library of Wales Archives and Manuscripts". archifau.llyfrgell.cymru.
  13. ↑ "Art Collections Online – Crabtree, Jack". National Museum Wales. Retrieved 14 August 2026.
  14. ↑ "A View through the Window of Patterson's Spade Mill". National Trust. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  15. ↑ "In The Showers". Art UK. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  16. ↑ "Portrait of Brian Friel". National Museums Northern Ireland. Retrieved 6 March 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  17. ↑ "Instagram". www.instagram.com.

Other sources

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