GERRY DUDGEON 1952 – 2023

Gerry was born in Darjeeling, India in 1952, where his father managed tea plantations.  The family resettled to England in the mid 1950s and his father became a farmer near Little Dunmow in Esssex.  Gerry read Modern Languages (German and French) at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1970-74.  After graduating he worked in Germany and for the Museum of London as an archaeologist for a year, which sparked his interest in layers of time and the history hidden beneath our feet.

He went on to study Fine Art (Painting) at Camberwell College of Arts from 1975-79, graduating with a First Class B.A. Hons dgree, snd continued his studies in painting on the M.F.A. course at Reading University under the tutelage of Terry Frost and the constructivist artist Adrian Heath.

On graduating in 1981, he was awarded a Boise travelling scholarship to New York from the Slade School of Art, where he pursued his interest in American Abstract Expressionism.  He also admired the painters Peter Lanyon, Ivon Hitchens, Barbara Rae, and Joan Eardley.

On his return from New York, he worked as an artist in London, in studios variously in Wapping, the Barbican, and Brixton, before moving to West Dorset in 1987.  He gave up part time teaching at Roehampton University in 2002 to concentrate more fully on painting.  In addition to exhibiting regularly, he also ran periodic residential painting courses in Devon and France, and occasional workshops from his studio.

Gerry tragically died in September 2023 after a short illness.