Elemental Nature: Keith Grant

Keith Grant (born Liverpool 1930) is a local boy who has taken the natural world as his subject.  From early years entranced by the countries of the north, he visited Iceland and Norway and painted the Aurora Borealis, icebergs and glaciers.  But he also explored the tropics and the desert, travelling to French Guiana, Cameroon, Sarawak, Israel and Guyana, and painting the very different landscapes of rainforest, sand and rock.  In 1996 he settled in Norway, and is still painting with undiminished energy and authority, now in his 95th year.

The Atkinson owns two of his paintings and this exhibition builds on the fact that Keith's earliest years were spent near Southport.  Indeed he studied at Bootle School of Art and held his first exhibition as a professional artist in Bootle.  If he has gone on to become a painter of international reputation, he has never forgotten his roots.  This exhibition pays tribute to his life's achievement with some paintings and a group of fascinating working drawings, made over the last 70 years.  This is his first showing in a British public gallery since his retrospective at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1994.
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