- Header
- Charles Mahoney
- Also known as
-
Charles Mahoney
-
primary name: Mahoney, Charles
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1903-1968
- Biography
- Born Cyril Mahoney in London, 1903. He attended Beckenham College of Art before studying at the Royal College of Art, 1922-6, where his fellow students were Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Barnett Freedman, who called him 'Charlie'. He then taught at the RCA from 1928-53. (Having only one eye he was evacuated with the RCA to the Lake District as painting tutor from 1940-45.) He taught at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting from 1954-63 and at the Royal Academy Schools, 1961-8. A distinctive mural painter, his decorative schemes included, 'The Pleasures of Life' at Morley College, South London in the late twenties (destroyed during WWII); Brockley County School (now Prendergast School), 1932-35; and Campion Hall, Oxford, 1941-52. Two mural panels, ‘Autumn” and 'The Garden' were included in the Festival of Britain Exhibition in 1951.
He married the calligrapher and illuminator, Dorothy Bishop (1902-84) in 1941. His work was exhibited at the New English Art Club and the Royal Academy, and he was elected RA in 1968. His work is held in the Tate Gallery, Royal Academy, Imperial War Museum, Geffrye Museum, London, and in other public collections. From 1945 he lived in Wrotham, Kent. He died in 1968.
Memorial exhibitions were held at the Parkin Gallery and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 1975. In 2000 a retrospective exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society and at the Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury and at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. His work was included in The Last Romantics (Barbican, 1989) and Art of the Garden (Tate Britain, 2004).
- Bibliography
- Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin: 'Modern British Paintings, Drawing and Sculpture', London 1964 II
Various authors: 'Charles Mahoney 1903-1968', Fine Arts Society, London, 1999
'British Murals and Decorative Painting 1910-1979' exhibition catalogue, Fine Arts Society/Liss Fine Art, 2013