Sir William Coldstream (February 28, 1908 – February 18, 1987) was an English realist painter and teacher.

Biography

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Born in Northumberland, he grew up in London and studied at the Slade School of Art, where he met and married Nancy Sharp. He co-founded the Euston Road School with Graham Bell and others in 1937. At the start of the Second World War he enlisted in the Royal Artillery, and in 1943 he was appointed as a war artist, working in Egypt and Italy. In 1949 he returned to lead the Slade School as Professor of Fine Art, and he was awarded the CBE in 1952. He was Chairman of the National Advisory Council on Art Education between 1958 and 1971, and Chairman of the British Film Institute from 1964 until 1971 (he had worked with John Grierson in the GPO Film Unit for a few years in the 1930s). He retired from the Slade School in 1975, but continued to paint until a couple of years before his death.

Method and works

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Coldstream was committed to painting directly from life. His type of realism had its basis in careful measurement, carried out by the following method: standing before the subject to be painted, a brush is held upright at arm's length. With one eye closed, the artist can, by sliding a thumb up or down the brush handle, take the measure of an object or interval. This finding is compared against other objects or intervals, with the brush still kept at arm's length. Informed by such measurements, the artist can paint what the eye sees without the use of conventional perspective. The surfaces of Coldstream's paintings carry many small horizontal and vertical markings, where he recorded these coordinates so that they could be verified against reality.

As a result of his painstaking methods, Coldstream worked slowly, often taking scores of sittings over several months to complete a work. His subjects include still-life, landscapes which are usually urban, portraits, and the female nude.

The Tate Gallery owns several of his paintings.

Commanders of the Order of the British Empire | 1908 births | 1987 deaths